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schrijverr · 1 year

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I Found Myself a Cheerleader 15

Chapter 15 out of 28

Bumped to the lowest step on the social ladder after his fight with Billy, Steve gets roped in with the cheer team. What starts as a favor to help them out when one member breaks her leg in turn for protection from the brunt of the bullying, sets the universe on a different path.

In this chapter, everyone’s life seems to be going in the wrong direction as Vecna rolls into town as they all seem to distance themselves from one another. Meanwhile, Robin has developed a crush on a certain cheerleader and it isn’t Steve.

On AO3.

Ships: steddie & buckingham

Warnings: internalized homophobia, homophobia mention, f-slur, bullying mention, HIV/AIDS crisis mention, racism mention, eating disorder mention

~~~~~~~

Chapter 15: The Arrival of Vecna

After new years, Steve feels like his life has been spiraling further and further out of control. Yet he cannot do anything, but stay. He can only watch and cling on as the roller coaster continues in a way that seems safe enough, but also like it can fall apart at any moment.

It’s just been a compilation of things, honestly. It feels like his fight with Eddie was a turning point and now, in a horrible domino effect, it is all getting worse from there.

Insecurity has been creeping up on him with the words of his father in that stupid clothing boutique and the fight with Eddie that came afterwards. Eddie, who is still ignoring him. Neither of them have said a word to the other since then.

He still feels conflicted about it. He hates what he did to Eddie and he wants to tell him how he didn’t mean it, but Eddie has taken to staying behind and sending the kids ahead, so he won’t have to see Steve’s face.

Steve has stopped getting out of the car. Just watches the school entrance in case he catches a flash of curly hair that he adores so much. His heart aches to make it right, to have dimples and chocolate eyes back in his life. Another part of him thinks it might be easier to be rejected, left in the dust. To be hurt, so he can get over it. To find love elsewhere.

Chrissy fake breaks up with him two weeks into the new year. Ever since then, he has been throwing himself at every girl that has come into Family Video in an attempt to cover up for all the emotions he’s feeling, but can’t put into words.

A few girls have actually taken him up on his offer and Steve has gone through with it, because he doesn’t think a straight boy in his position would refuse. It hasn’t been the most comfortable, but nothing he hasn’t done before and it’s just a task to get through.

Chrissy and Robin both have expressed concern about his behavior, but Steve will not listen to them.

The two have been hanging out quite a bit, since they’re stuck in school together and Steve is glad they’re getting along, but it’s annoying that they now team up together. It can be quite funny when they’re just ribbing each other, but more recently they’re being concerned together, which makes Steve want to walk into the forest never to be seen again. He doesn’t know why.

Right now is such a moment, where he can feel their eyes on his back as he leads a girl through the store, putting on his charm.

Steve is pretty sure she has a boyfriend, so hopefully this won’t end in another disastrous date. And for now he tries to feel validated by how she giggles and twirls her hair. No one will question him if he goes on like this. Next time, there will be more evidence needed than a few slurs, a picture in the year book, or the fact he isn’t married yet. Next time, he’ll be safer.

It’s for the best, so he ignores the stares of Chrissy and Robin as he flirts with the girl, whose name he does not know, pretending to be disappointed but understanding when she tells him about her boyfriend.

He rings her up, having to bump Robin out of the way, before watching her go with smile in place that he drops with a sigh once she’s out the door. Robin takes the moment to pipe up: “You don’t have to keep doing that, you know that, right?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he grits, playing dumb, because he isn’t in the mood for a lecture. He already feels uncomfortable enough in his own skin.

“We’re just worried, Stevie,” Chrissy says with those big eyes of her that Steve has always been a little weak for and she knows it.

Steve sends her a glare and scowls: “Nothing to worry about.”

“Dingus,” Robin huffs, a little annoyed by how he’s avoiding the topic. It hasn’t become a thing yet, Steve could never not show up when she needs him or vise versa, but he knows how much she hates that he’s shutting her out.

And he does feel guilty about it. Her remembers how she once confessed to him how everyone always seems to leave her behind. In the darkness of the night, Steve had promised he never would, but now he’s pushing her away.

The guilt eats at him and he doesn’t want to do a repeat of his behavior of when he fought with Eddie. He doesn’t want to fuck up like that again. So, he takes a deep breath and pleads: “I know, okay, I know. Please, just- just drop it, okay?”

It is the closest he has come to acknowledging it and Chrissy and Robin both share a look before looking back. Robin reacts first, she takes his hand and gives him a crooked smile: “Alright, dingus, okay.”

“We’re here if you want to talk,” Chrissy offers, also smiling.

Steve does not know what he did to deserve friends like this, but he feels incredibly fortunate. He smiles back and softly says: “Thanks.”

He wants to move on from the topic now, but he doesn’t know how. Luckily, Robin can practically read his mind, so she turns to Chrissy and says: “Hey, Chris, how is cheer going? Band is already practicing for the prep rally, you guys too?”

Chrissy lights up and excitedly starts talking about the new routine they’ve been working on. On another day, Steve would immediately get sucked into the topic, however, today he takes a second to recover before going to dive in.

Because he’s taking that moment, he suddenly notices how Robin is looking at Chrissy. Chrissy is smiling brightly as she talks about cheer and Robin is watching her, only following along, because she’s friends with two cheerleaders, thus has learned too much through osmosis, partially against her will. However, she doesn’t seem to mind, she’s smiling along, a little blush covering her freckles, as she stares at Chrissy.

Holy shit.

Robin has a crush on Chrissy. It just hits him as he watches her. He hasn’t heard her about Vickie for a while, but he hadn’t realized that was because she likes someone else. Because she likes Chrissy.

He isn’t subtle about his realization either. Well, he is, but not for Robin. He is still holding her hand and squeezes it in surprise when he notices, looking between the two.

She looks at him when he squeezes and sees him glancing between them. Her eyes grow wide and he can see in her eyes that if he even thinks about uttering about saying anything while Chrissy is still in a 1 mile radius of Family Video, she is going to murder him.

Steve knows the feeling, so he quickly nods to let her know he gets it, before jumping into cheer, so that Chrissy won’t notice the hiccup.

Of course he had noticed the two getting closer and retrospectively the first time Robin saw Chrissy was pretty gay with how she spluttered and was rendered quite speechless, but he never really thought about it like that. A part of him still can’t fully fathom that anyone would be attracted to either of them, even if they are objectively attractive.

However, he manages to keep being normal until Chrissy has to go home. She hugs Steve first and he squeezes her back, before he watches her hug Robin, who seemingly explodes. He hadn’t know she could blush like that and has to bite his lip not giggle at her.

Though Steve has to admit, Robin is not the worst, not like he’s seen her with other girls she has liked. She isn’t tripping over herself rambling, instead just does an awkward smile and doesn’t really hug back, as she splutters a goodbye.

They both wave as Chrissy leaves and Steve drops it the moment, she gets into the car and he turns to Robin. Robin, who is blushing and not meeting his eyes. A shit eating grin creeps up on his face and he leans against the counter next to Robin as he drawls: “So… Chrissy.”

“Oh shut up,” she squeaks, pushing him away without looking.

Steve pouts and comes right back into her space and whines: “Oh come on, you bullied me about Eddie, I told you everything. You can’t just leave me hanging like this.”

Now Robin looks at him and she doesn’t look like Robin at all. Steve stops and looks at her, frowning as he takes in how she is hunched over, bites her lip anxiously, plays with her fingers, loosing the liveliness he loves about her. Gently he asks: “Hey, you okay?”

“You’re not mad about my crush on Chrissy?” she asks in a small voice that he hates on her. He likes how she cackles and rambles, not this.

“Of course I’m not mad,” he tells her. “Why would I be mad that you like her? She is super nice and a cool girl. Was inevitable, honestly.”

“It was not,” Robin scoffs, before she asks: “Isn’t it, like, against bro code to like someone’s friend?”

“Robin, you are also Chrissy’s friend,” Steve points out.

She has the audacity to look surprised by that statement and to then ask: “I am?”

“Yeah, Robs, you are,” Steve says, unsure how she can’t know that. “You two are always hanging out together, you eat lunch together. She asks me how you’ve been when you have to work while we hang out, because I’ve seen you last.”

“Oh, I thought she only did that to me, because you’re friends and I’m just also always there,” Robin says, scratching the back of her head.

“Gods, I love you, but you’re also an idiot,” Steve informs her.

“Hey, I take offense to that,” Robin pouts, but she is also grinning, which is a win.

“You can be offended later, tell me about your crush now,” Steve demands. “You finally developed taste, I have to know more.”

“Screw you, dingus,” Robin exclaims as she pushes him.

Steve wrinkles his nose and replies: “I’d rather you not.”

“Iewww,” Robin shudders, but she’s laughing too. Both of them taking a moment to giggle, before Robin sighs wistfully and says: “She’s just so pretty.” Then Robin groans and boinks her head on the counter. “And painfully straight. I listened to her talk about Tom Cruise for like an hour yesterday. The worst thing? I didn’t even mind, because she looks cute when she’s excited.”

Steve graciously suppresses the urge to laugh at her and just pats her back in a sympathetic manner, because he knows how much that sucks. “You’re gonna be okay, Robs. It sucks to have a crush on a straight person.”

“How would you know?” she asks, coming up from where she has buried her head in her arms to glare at him. “Eddie has taken to parading around with a hanky in his pocket, like I won’t know what that means. You had a chance.”

Had a chance, Steve repeats to himself, feeling a little stab. He could have if he hadn’t been so scared and such a dick. But Robin is lamenting her own crush, so he’s not going to be sad about his love life, especially because that will be an invitation to talk to him about how he’s flirting with girls everywhere and Steve knows what Robin is doing. She hopes he’ll bite and won’t ask more about her new crush that she has been trying to hide.

So, instead he doesn’t bite and just says: “I’ve had crushes on other people, you know. And I didn’t have a chance with them.”

“Who?” Robin demands, now fully dropping the gloom, much to Steve’s relief, he hates seeing her sad.

“Jonathan,” he admits, wanting to jump into a ditch and hide the moment he does.

“What?” Robin exclaims with glee in her voice. “Why didn’t you tell me that, dingus. That is important to know. You had a crush on the guy that stole your girlfriend.”

“I mean, we fought and it kind of made me realize some things,” Steve shrugs in embarrassment.

“You had a crush on him because he beat you up?” Robin asks, eyes nearly falling out of her sockets as she interrogates him.

“No,” Steve scowls, crossing his arms. “And we were talking about your hopeless crush, remember?”

“We can do that later, I have to hear this,” Robin waves his protest aside. “If not because he beat you up, then why?”

“He just made me realize I didn’t want to keep being King Steve when he beat me up,” Steve explains. “And then when I went to apologize we had to run from the demogorgon and he grabbed my hand and pulled me to safety. And I realized I liked that a little more than I should.”

“Oh my god, that is the best thing I have ever heard,” Robin squeals.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” Steve replies, hands over his ears.

“No, come on, this is great,” Robin grins. “I’m never going to let you forget that you had a crush on Jonathan because he held you hand.”

“Fuck off, I also held your hand, didn’t get a crush on you,” Steve pouts.

“Not really the right demographic, now am I?” Robin counters. “Unlike what you want to make everyone think. What happened there? Are you okay?”

“No, we’re not turning it around on me,” Steve snaps. “I meant it. I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s just talk about your crush and let me forget about it, okay? Please.”

Something in his voice must tell her how serious he is, because she nods seriously, despite obviously not wanting to and collapses back over the counter, lamenting about Chrissy in her cheer uniform and her soft cheeks and adorable giggle.

Despite having been friends with Chrissy for about a year now, Robin mentions things that Steve has never consciously registered about her. It’s odd but interesting to look at his friend through different eyes. Like, he never really noticed Chrissy had dimples, but when he thinks about it, she totally does.

It’s actually really cute how much Robin likes Chrissy, but Steve is also scared for her. He knows Chrissy is cool about the gay thing, though that might not translate to lesbians, since Robin hasn’t come out yet. However, that does not mean, she won’t break Robin’s heart.

Steve cares about both of them very much, but he will probably choose Robin, if this crush blows up in their faces. He might not have known Robin the longest, but they’ve been through so much together. You don’t just forget about that. And, despite how he is partially ignoring it, Robin is also queer, he will always support her and understand her struggles. Even if that means loosing Chrissy in the process.

Fuck, he just hopes Chrissy is at least cool about it, or that Robin’s crush blows over before something can happen.

Over the following weeks, it seems like life hates him more and more, as it continues to get worse and worse. It’s nothing big, but life seems to get lonelier.

Robin, of course, still fills his every moment when she can, but she still has school and finals are coming up as well. So, he sees her primarily when driving her to school, or at work, or when they’re both failing to fall asleep.

Mike has never liked him, so his lessening in appearance doesn’t come as a surprise. While Dustin still comes by, but less often than he used to, swept up into Hellfire club, robotics team and the never ending homework of high school. Meanwhile, Lucas has made varsity team, so he is also busy. Steve is so proud of him, but he just hopes that the basketball team doesn’t chew him up and spit him out while Steve can’t look out for him.

Lucas and Max have also broken up, so he doesn’t hang out with Lucas at the trailer park anymore either. He still has gone by to check on her, but she isn’t around or doesn’t open the door. Whenever he is there, he can feel Eddie’s trailer judging him from behind. So, he stopped.

However, he still trains with Lucas from time to time, teaching him things about basketball that he still remembers from when he was star player on the team. Like today, just the two of them shooting hoops on the Sinclair’s driveway.

It’s Wednesday and Chrissy canceled on Steve. She has been doing that more often and Steve doesn’t know what to do about it. Whenever they do hang out, she is still herself and Robin doesn’t note much out of the ordinary if the amount of times she waxes poetry about Chrissy’s smile is anything to go off.

For now, he tries to put it out of his mind and focus on Lucas. He yells: “Don’t dribble too hard, just above the knee. Stay in control.”

Lucas switches up his dribble slightly and Steve immediately has a harder time taking the ball from him. He can see in Lucas’ grin that he notices it too. They twirl around each other for a little longer, before Lucas can make a shot.

Both of them turn to watch as the ball arcs through the air, before bouncing on the rim once, twice, before falling next to it and rolling away with a slight bounce. Steve grimaces and forces a cheer in his voice as he says: “You’ll get it next time.”

He goes to get the ball, leaving Lucas a second the wallow in private, before turning back. In that time, Lucas has slumped on the steps of the house in a way that suggest that he isn’t getting up again. He seems done for the day, but the defeated pose doesn’t sit right with Steve.

So, he sits down next to Lucas and lets the quiet hang over them for a second. Then he asks: “You doing okay?”

The boy next to him sighs in a way that makes him seem way older than he should be. He shrugs, then pauses, before shaking his head. “Not really, no.”

“Wanna talk about it?” Steve offers. He might not be the best at comforting, but he at least knows what Lucas has been through, what he has seen. Sometimes it’s enough to be understood.

“Max has been distant lately,” Lucas says. “She barely talks to us in the hallways of school and we never see her anywhere else. It’s like she’s a ghost sometimes. I don’t know what’s happening. She seemed fine a few weeks ago.”

Steve has noticed the same thing, but he doesn’t want to worry Lucas more when it’s obviously eating at him. So he takes a moment to think. Then he replies: “Max is a tough cookie. She just needs a little bit. Billy’s birthday is coming up, I’m sure that must mess with her a little. She’ll reach out again when she’s ready.”

“You really think so?” Lucas asks, finally looking up from where he’d hung his head. It’s a little like he’s perking up with the glimmer of hope.

In all honesty, Steve isn’t sure. He likes to think she will, but he could be wrong. However, he doesn’t want to rip away the hope he has given Lucas, so he just smiles: “Yeah, I do.”

Lucas smiles back and Steve feels a little guilty, but also glad to see him smile like that. Lucas has already been through much, much more than he should. He wants Lucas to be happy. He still remembers how terrified he looked as Billy had him pinned. It still appears in his nightmares, the what if he hadn’t been on time plaguing him.

So, he pushes away the guilt and moves the topic to something more fun. “You’re becoming really good at avoiding my blocks. A little more and I won’t stand a chance against you.”

“Thanks,” Lucas huffs with a small laugh. “Now if only coach saw that and I could be on the court next game instead of being a bench warmer.”

“Don’t be to hard on yourself, man,” Steve tells him. “You already made varsity in your freshman year, that’s huge. Most don’t make it until the second semester sophomore and then they’re still bench warmers, because coach wants to give the older players scouting chances. Trust me, next year you’re going to be star player.”

“You think so?” Lucas asks.

“Yeah, I do,” Steve says, this time not lying. Lucas is a talent. He adds as a joke: “I might not have been on the team in a while, but I still remember Jason’s try outs for varsity when I was star player in junior year. All his talk is a recent development.”

Lucas is smiling at the start of the sentence, but as he goes on, he sees something dim in how he holds himself. Steve doesn’t think he said anything to get that reaction and frowns: “Hey, where is your mind going off to?”

“The team,” Lucas says, sounding a little hesitant.

Steve still remembers what dicks the team used to be, both when he was on it and when he got bullied away. His heart stops beating as a fear seizes him. “Are they being assholes to you?” he asks immediately. “Because I still have the nail bat and I can have a talk with them.”

“No, no, not that,” Lucas quickly says, which is good to hear, but there is something in his tone that makes Steve suspicious.

“But…” he prompts when Lucas keeps his lips together as if he is keeping something in.

Lucas looks away and rubs the back of his head. He lets out a deep breath, hyping himself up, before looking back at Steve and admitting: “They’re just saying really messed up things about you.”

Oh.

“Oh,” Steve says out loud, he didn’t expect that. Well, he did. He had just hoped the shine would have worn off by the time the kids got Hawkins High, but apparently it’s still bad enough that it got to Lucas. Though Chrissy mentioned how Jason seemingly still has it out for him ever since she rejected him for Steve.

A flash of embarrassment goes through him as he imagines what the others on the basketball team might have said about him. He is well aware of what rumors those boys spread. About how he’s a fag, and a whore fag at that. That he’ll get on his knees for anyone willing to give him the time of day. That he was a filthy queer that stared in the locker rooms. That he was a pussy that hid behind a group of girls. How easily he goes down after a punch. How easily he takes it.

He has heard it all when he still walked those halls. He learned to ignore it and he learned to lie about it to the kids, because he didn’t want them to ever hear that about him. To have the image he held with them be tainted. But they had.

At least Lucas had, because if Max had heard Billy didn’t keep his promise, she would have been upset with Steve and come to him. And Dustin obviously wouldn’t have kept his mouth shut about it.

Fuck, Lucas knows those rumors.

Lucas has heard how Steve might be gay, something he has kept away from all the kids except Will, because Will needed to know it. And now he is still in that limbo, where he knows it about himself, but is working so hard to keep others from seeing.

What if Lucas is looking closer? What if he has guessed? What if all of them know? What if they’re all disgusted by it and that’s why they’ve gotten too busy to hang around Steve anymore?

He doesn’t know what Lucas sees in his face, but he looks like he wants the ground to swallow him up. Yet, he tries to comfort Steve with: “It’s not too bad.”

An involuntary laugh escapes Steve at the placating lie, the disbelief obvious. There is no way it’s not still terrible, but the fact that Lucas is trying to comfort him, eases his nerves a bit.

“Okay, so it is quite bad,” Lucas winces, wringing his hands. “Why didn’t you ever tell us what was happening at school?”

Steve scoffs, can’t help the reaction, and says: “Lucas, I would never drop my shit on a bunch of kids. You all had enough to deal with. I was doing fine anyway. It wasn’t that bad.”

“They’re calling you all sorts of slurs and saying that you’re going to die of AIDS, how is that okay, Steve?” Lucas exclaims, startling Steve with the volume of the outburst.

“Well, it’s not true, so it doesn’t matter,” Steve snaps back.

He doesn’t want to think about how he knows exactly what slurs Lucas is talking about, how they have always clung to him, adding weight to all that drags him down, because he knows they’re true, how he’s been scared shitless of AIDS ever since he last saw his father, even though he has been extra safe when he does fuck, and how those are girls, which make him uncomfortable, a thing he also doesn’t want to think about.

Lucas reels back again by how forcefully Steve says them and Steve internally cringes at how that probably doesn’t help his point, though he keeps a poker face despite it.

He studies Steve for a second and Steve practically holds his breath as he keeps it up, he hopes that Lucas will drop it. He doesn’t, instead, Lucas gets a little quieter. He looks at the ground, then glances back up at Steve and softly says: “But it still hurts, doesn’t it?”

The comment goes deeper than this conversation. It is a cry for recognition. A plea to be heard. To be seen in a pain. A pain that Lucas thinks they might share.

Steve might not be the smartest, but he’s also not an idiot. He knows why Billy went after Lucas but not Dustin for hanging around his sister, knows that fag isn’t the only slur the basketball team throws around, knows that Lucas will hear that too, even if they don’t target him directly and how that can still hurt.

And while he doesn’t want to say anything that might be suspicious, Lucas is one of his kids and he needs to not be alone right now, so he matches Lucas’ quiet tone and admits: “Yeah, it does hurt, a lot. And it fucking sucks.”

Lucas looks relieved by the admission, though an air of sadness still hangs around them. Neither of them can fully know what the other is going through, but for a moment they aren’t alone in their misery and sometimes that can be enough. Lucas huffs out a small laugh and agreed: “It does fucking suck.”

“Don’t tell your mom I used that word,” Steve jokingly threatens. He is glad he was able to help Lucas feel better, but he needs this conversation to be over now. To not have Lucas go poking further than this.

“I won’t,” Lucas laughs. “Besides, she’s heard worse from Dustin.”

“Dustin got some of that from me, I have to be honest there,” Steve comments with a grin, making Lucas laugh more.

Steve wants to move on to other things, however, something is still gnawing on him. He is not there to protect these kids and he cares so much about them, so he needs to be assured that Lucas will be okay on his own in the basketball team. “The others aren’t targeting you, right?”

“No,” Lucas assures him. “Patrick has taken me under his wing a bit, which is nice. He’s also black and good friends with Jason, so they mostly leave us be.” He’s quiet for a second, then adds: “It’s some of the other kids that get targeted. I never really do anything and I feel like I’m the worst because of it.”

“Don’t,” Steve immediately says and Lucas looks surprised, as if he expected Steve to say something different. After all the times Steve threw himself between them and danger that is pretty valid, but that is so much different than this. That isn’t a permanent slight in the eyes of the town, Steve knows how that feels. It is very much not the same.

“Don’t?” Lucas repeats with a confused frown.

“It’s not worth it, trust me,” Steve tells him. “The next time they rag on a poor kid, who also doesn’t deserve it or talk shit about me, you stay quiet, you hear me? You keep your mouth shut. Me and some random kid, aren’t worth being an outcast over. I know it sucks, but it’s how to survive high school. Promise me?”

“Okay, yeah, I promise,” Lucas says, unsettled by the intensity.

Steve isn’t under the illusion that he is the first to say this to Lucas. His parents must be worried sick about him as well, but Lucas might be more willing to listen to Steve than his uncool parents, especially since Steve has a hero status in Lucas’ mind. So, he says it anyway.

“Good, just keep your head down and stick to Patrick,” Steve nods. “Patrick cool?”

“Yeah,” Lucas says with a small smile. “He’s a little withdrawn, but he has this sick fade away long shot that he’s been teaching me.”

“Sounds great. Show me?” Steve asks, getting up and holding the ball out to Lucas. It’s a way to get out of their heads again, away from the heavy conversation, something Steve thinks they both need right now.

Fortunately, Lucas takes the ball with a grin, both of them getting back in position, so that Lucas can show off the shot. It’s a fun way to forget about all the bad and Steve sees himself in Lucas, how he used sports to get out of his head for a bit. That afternoon, he vows to go to all of his games, even if he’s on the bench every time.

Over the following weeks, Steve is there at all Lucas’ games as the team slowly climbs their way up through the championships. Steve has to admit they’re good, they might stand a chance at winning this year.

Meanwhile, life goes on in other places as well, in its own rickety way.

Chrissy cancels more and more, it’s been weeks since they stunted together, even if they finally got their handstand stunt. Steve misses it more than he wants to admits. Misses Chrissy even more, only glimpsing at her during Lucas’ games, her smiles looking fake and her cheer uniform loose.

Steve worries about her, but knows it isn’t his place to talk about her struggles with Robin. So, he just gives Robin a little too many snacks and hopes she knows how to share. However, Chrissy is no longer sitting with Robin during lunch, another worrying development that has other consequences as well.

“She totally knows!” Case in point. Robin is hanging over the counter, looking defeated. She has been the only person not falling apart around Steve and he needs her to be okay. He hates to see her sad like this. Especially when he can’t fix it.

“How would she know?” he counters, knowing it’s not enough, but having to try anyway.

Robin glares at him, before throwing her hands about: “I don’t know, dingus. Maybe I stared at her too long or said something embarrassing and weird, because I keep on humiliating myself around her and she caught on and now she hates me.”

“Chrissy doesn’t hate you,” Steve insists. He is 99% sure of that, despite the lack of contact between them now. There is something else going on with her, he just doesn’t know what and that bothers him to all hell.

“Did she tell you that?” Robin counters.

“You know she didn’t,” Steve glares at her, before taking a deep calming breath. They both have been on edge and the last thing he wants to do, is snap at her and have yet another friendship fall apart.

Robin is observing him and when he looks at her again, normally this time, she says: “Sorry, I didn’t mean to push.”

“It’s okay,” he sighs. “It’s not like you’re in control of her pulling away.”

“And what if I am? What if I’m right and she did notice my crush on her and now she’s disgusted and pulling away? What then?” Robin rambles anxiously.

“Then she’s a dick and we don’t want to be friends with her,” Steve states, because that is obvious in his brain. “But that’s not the reason, she’s too nice for that.”

“You sure?” Robin asks.

“I’m sure,” Steve confirms.

They’re both quiet for a second, then Robin speaks up, her voice an odd mix of disbelief, awe and skepticism, as she asks: “You would really drop her if she wasn’t okay with my crush?”

It’s an echo of when Steve figured her out, when she was unsure if Steve would be okay with it and it still amazes him that she doesn’t know that he would do anything for her. “Yeah, I would. Of course, I would. Why wouldn’t I?”

“I don’t know,” Robin shrugs, not meeting his eyes. “You two have been friends longer than we have. I wouldn't hold it against you.”

“Robs, 1) if she is homophobic, I don’t want to be friends with her and 2) you’re my platonic soulmate, I’m always going to put you first,” he says, putting as much intent and genuineness in his voice as he can in the hope she’ll believe him.

“Platonic soulmates, eh?” she grins, not fully acknowledging it, but tentatively daring to believe by not countering it or questioning him.

“With a capital P,” Steve grins back. “You’re stuck with me now, Buckley.”

“I’m holding you to that, Stevie,” she replies, knowing he doesn’t like his last name.

The next day are the championships. Steve is in Family Video alone, waiting until he can go clock out and get the girl he’s bringing for show. He’s a little self aware around the basketball team since his talk with Lucas, so it will be good to be seen with a girl on his arm.

He’s bored out of his mind, so glad when the phone rings. He picks up: “You’ve reached Family Video, this is Steve. How-”

“Yeah, Steve,” Dustin cuts of his standard greeting. “I need you to play DnD with me and the rest of Hellfire tonight.”

“What? Why?” Steve replies, unsure why they would be playing tonight.

“Because it’s the ending of the campaign and we need someone else,” Dustin says. “Eddie is on our ass to find someone, please.”

At the mention of Eddie’s name, a shiver goes through his body. He cannot face Eddie. Not like that. The need to hide away comes over him and he throws out: “No, I can’t, I have a date.”

“Just move your date this one time,” Dustin demands. “Come on.”

Usually Steve is a pushover and would easily bend to that demand, but he can’t. Lucas is playing tonight, it’s the championship. And it’s Eddie. Eddie, who hates him. Eddie, who makes him feel things. And he just can’t.

His brain goes to a patented method and a little meanly he says: “What? To hang out with you and Eddie “The Freak” Munson? Uh, yeah, I’ll pass.”

The moment he says it, he hates himself. He vowed not to do this anymore and now he is. Fuck, why is he like that?

Dustin doesn’t notice, luckily, and just says: “You’re just jealous because I have another older male friend.”

And a part of Steve is jealous. Jealous that Dustin gets to hang out with Eddie without feeling like he wants to explode, either from horniness, fear or embarrassing mushy feelings. Feelings that also make him want to hide away.

He knows he has them, that they won’t go away, but every time he thinks he can accept that, another voice speaks up and crushes it. It’s a constant battle and at this point, he isn’t even sure what team he’s on.

But he doesn’t tell Dustin that, instead he says: “Iew. Ugh. Whatever,” before making up some story about really digging this girl, whose name he has already forgotten, before pretending a customer comes in, so he can hang up on Dustin.

It’s not until, he’s getting ready to go for the game, that he is centered enough to realize that Dustin was looking for a replacement for Lucas. That Eddie isn’t postponing the session so Lucas can be there and make the championship.

If they were still friends, he would’ve said something about it to Eddie. Then he realizes that this might be Eddie outing his anger at Steve and all his jockiness that he showed Eddie when he stomped all over him. And he feels a little sicks with it.

Fuck, hopefully spring break will be what they all need to get off this roller coaster again. A little bit of a break away from it all will be good for them.

A/N:

Robin being surprised that Steve wants to be her friend, that she is also friends with Chrissy, that they want her around, it’s breaking my heart </3

Also Lucas deserves so much more and the Duffers keep doing him dirty, I’m so mad about that actually >:(

(Disclaimer: I am white and probably not the best to write about this, but it wanted to note the fact that Lucas is dealing with other shit too in there as well. Hopefully that came across okay and if I said anything offensive, please let me know)

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mirtifero · 1 year

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May I ask about ur rogues :D ? Like, what's the basic backstory behind each one, and maybe if you have any drawing or just an idea of appearance :P

(HOLY FUCK THIS ENDED HUGE BECAUSE OF THE SCARECROW BIT)

I do have some doodles but I'm very insecure regarding them so I won't rlly show them.

Also putting this under read more because i fear it may get big lol

The rogues that I currently have are Joker, Harley, Ivy, Riddler and Scarecrow. I want to do a Scarface and Ventriloquist (I LOVE him very much) and also a Two Face (I also want to do a Gilda but she's not a rogue) but I don't have many ideas yet.

The only one with a backstory is John, Harley and Ivy have little drafts

Scarecrow

Tw: abuse, bullying, death, animal death, manipulation, unethical medical stuff, eh you get the idea

Jonathan has a similar backstory to Year One, being raised by his great granny in Georgia (not many details here because my brazilian ass doesn't know anything about Georgia). Because of the abuse he suffered from her, he became a bit of an isolated child and overall kinda numb to things around him (since he was constantly anxious and overthinking, he was also kinda unaware of whatever was happening around him). He was also very, very physically weak, which meant the work he did used to make him constantly physically sick and he constantly had to go to school during these times. Overall he was a very easy victim of bullying so that also shaped a lot of his life. His teachers didn't do much because, since it was a very conservative and religious town, the fact that he was a bastard child and "weird", "offputting", "sick" and overall "too fidgety/scared" to things around him, they used to think of him as less or as some sinful thing. Besides that his family didn't have a great reputation either so no reason for them to care, right? He did try to fight back or outsmart his bullies but it never really worked because why would it! He was sick and skinny and no one would ever try to protect him. He spent most of his time reading and mostly trying to understand what was wrong with him, which gave him a lot of medical and psychological knowladge later on.

By reading was when he started to obsess with fear. He knew that he HAD to have some sort of power over people so he made a sort of character for himself. Not really Scarecrow, he used to be very into gothic horror so he made a sort of ghost figure that didn't rely on him appearing to scare people. He would kill rats and other small animals, put them in lockers or doors, write with blood and just enjoy himself watching people freak out. He never made the hauntings talk about treating him better because he knew it would make things worse for him, he just wanted to see people freak out and have that euphoric feeling inside him that it was because of HIM. The town had rumours about being haunted now and it was because of HIM and that made his attitude towards people to shift a lot over time. He went from being shy and insecure to just quiet and egocentrical. John didn't, like, stutter much anymore, he'd just stare quietly at things. Over time that evolved to him being very manipulative and good at playing with people's emotions/playing with his own facade.

I'm not so sure about this part but I do think he manages to make his great granny have a heart attack once and that, like, he had that sudden shift to being happier with himself. According to him, he unfortunately had to pretend to be scared and sad about his great granny's death but he was EUPHORIC about it.

When he grew up he managed to get a scholarship to Gotham University, where he majored in psychology. He stopped his shenanigans for a while there, since he felt somewhat safer. People didn't really care much about the tall lanky man so he didn't care much either. He worked in small magazines and custumer service for a while to pay the bills while he kept studying. He has a master in medicine and a doctorate in psychochemestry. During his post grads is where things get funky again.

He started to research on Arkham, where he did not care whatsoever about the patients well being and overall kinda used that freedom he had to expand his research. He wanted to see how people reacted to fear, seeing its uses and overall how to cause fear in "very small amounts that multiply to a disaster". He basically fucking incentived self destructing and mayhem, "in very small amounts", kinda to see what happened (ps: Batman already existed by then).

His papers started doing numbers(tm) because, since he was very good at twisting things, he made all the unethical and destructive nature of his research go unseen. He managed to become a professor, a job that he really enjoyed! He basically went his days lecturing and doing research at Arkham, having basically two jobs at that point. Like, nice by day evil by night (?,????? AKSJANWH).

Anyways, at some point he wanted to start using his chemestry knowladge and he started working on the fear toxin, which he tested on arkham patients (Riddler was one of them btw but more on that later) which caused enough problems to call authorities attention.

He started getting criticized (rightfully so btw it was terrible stuff happening) on the academia which started to freak him out. He was very angry that he was on the edge of losing his teaching job (which was a great source of pleasure for him, he was even very nice to students!!!) but also horrified of the same thing. He wanted to keep his research at all costs because he was too far gone at that point and thought he was being bullied like when he was a kid, which, uh, yeah.

Because of him associating being rightfully criticized with his past, he decided to go back to his usual bullshittery. Except this time with a Scarecrow, since his research used a lot the idea of a metaphorical scarecrow and shit. He had a curious relationship with birds that I'll mention in a sec and he basically started training them to attack officials, students, started leaving dead stuff around, write shit and also poison people with toxin.

It was, in many ways, not nearly as calculated as his kid shenanigans, because he was in a different context where he tought he was going to lose the only thing he loved.

Anyways.

Batman got his ass. Yaay!!

Okay so other stuff:

He has a very complicated relationship with religion, he is scared of abandoning it but he also hates it with his very being.

Because of the above, his relationship with sex is even more complicated. He doesn't mind sex, people talking about it or even reading it in a book, he is just scared of him in specific being punished for anything sexual. Plus, he has a lot of internalized homophobia and he's gay, so, uh, there's a lot to unpack here.

Although he was scared of crows, when he started to become very fascinated by them. He daydreamed about being this tall being surrounded by crows and shit like he thought it'd be so badass.

During his teaching years he was actually quite nice to his students but tbh only to his students. Other than that he was just a smirking manipulative cunt and very serious looking.

After all the chaos his manipulative nature started to make him look very unnerving since he was constantly looking happy but it was very obvious he was either freaking out or incredibly angry. He is constantly smiling and acting calm but he is, very obviously, not okay.

He gets along with Harley okay. She reminds him of his students so she's, like, somewhat a close friend. She is neutral about him but considers him a friend. She hates what he did to patients tho.

His relationship with Edward is HORRIBLY UNSTABLE. More on that later.

He has such a fucking crush on Batman you don't get it. Part of him WANTED to get caught by Batman SPECIFICALLY during that mess. He denies it to his last breath but he wants to spin Batman on a microwave and dissecate his brain and he has such a crush it's horrible. He watches the news religiously wanting to see the batman bits.

Appearence wise he looks like a mixture of fear state and future state. Also a bit of arkham knight.

Joker

Tw: murder and reference to abuse

Okay so he doesn't have a backstory yet and he's, like, very different from usual Joker because I made him while angry at Joker AKWHNQHQKA

He's basically a manchild, a whiny annoying bitch that is very loud and colorful and laughing at literally everything. His jokes consist of murder and death and always connected to puns, sometimes nonsensical because he's having a moment.

He gets angry easily and screams a lot and is one of the, surprisingly, most deadly rogues (not on the top 3 but def on the top, idk, 10 or maybe 5).

He loves wearing eccentric clothing and acting like the world is a stage and he is very unpredictable when it comes to who is his next pun victim. He can be very manipulative and creepy if he's calmed down, but that's rare, so he's mostly just loud and obnoxious. No one likes him and he's mostly just very dangerous because of his unpredictable brutality.

He was Harley's patient and when she met his "calmer side" she was fascinated and wanted to understand him, which made him manipulate her a lot. More on that later. She left him when he freaked out and screamed at her and shit like he fr never loved her or whatever.

He's obsessed with the batman, believing he is the only one that can bring him some sort of wanted joy that he longs for so much. He never feels properly happy and he just believes Batman is the one who will bring this happiness to him like an angel. When he isn't causing mayhem full of makeup and bright clothing he is overall kinda sad and miserable looking.

That's kinda of it! He is a bit difficult to explain :(

Appearence wise he's like. A clown. His hair is spiky tho. (When he's not with makeup his hair kinda falls and it's very depressing like Kajwkqjsk)

Riddler

Tw: abuse, neglect, stuff like that

He is... oh where do I start.

Edward has a history of being treated like shit by people around him. As a child, he was actually very sweet and excited about everything! But his excitement was looked as something very annoying. People would beat the shit out of him or just treat him as less. That made him start to close with time and become a very quiet child, always playing with math and little puzzles. He was also very neglected so he wanted to constantly find ways of getting attention, by being the greatest, by convincing himself he was the greatest. He needed to survive, somehow.

Things didn't get better with time, his unstable behaviour making him become isolated and sometimes even physically harmed by people around him. That made him befome more aggressive and insecure and an overall mess. During most of his young years he cried a lot alone.

His backstory isn't complete yet, but this develops into him becoming incredibly selfish and egocentrical and to see himself as superior. He thinks people around him are trying to copy him or underestimate his abilities with tend to lead to him being really obnoxious.

I don't know how he snapped yet, but it was definitely him wanting attention and getting it in a very aggressive manner.

He is very obsessed with numbers and puzzles and needs to constantly do them otherwise he may end up self destructive. In the sense of "avoiding a single thought from occuring" yk?

He was one of John's patients and oh boy was that. Complicated.

John is fascinated by Edward, it's kind of a "I can make him so much worse". Jonathan even tested less his experiments on Edward because he wanted to just... dissect his brain in a way.

Edward however never really contributed. He hated John. He believed with all his heart that he was just trying to flatter him and "fix him". He also KNEW something was fucked up about John and did not want to take part in it, since he thought he was far superior to whatever lab rat John wanted Ed to be. The only time John used his toxin on Ed was out of curiosity on what Ed feared, and wanting him to get closer to him (it's kinda fucked up). This whole thing just makes him even more fascinated by Ed and yeah Ed hates his ass (rightfully so).

He's bi and has a complicated relationship with Batman. He is obsessed with wanting to outsmart him and/or also sees him as an equal and/or has a huge fucking crush.

He barely gets along with anyone tbh because he kinda hates everyone around him (even batman in a way).

He is still a draft like there's a lot I can add here!!! So sorry for the lack of stuff

Appearance wise he looks. He wears a silly hat and the suit it's kinda of a weird mix between yz and ak riddler.

Harley

Tw: abuse

Harley was a psychologist with the dream of helping people. She started as a teenage therapist and enjoyed it very much, specially with how she was able to incentive people to be genuine and start being chaotically happy, angry or anything like that.

She got a job at arkham and had to leave her other job for that. Shit with Joker happened blah blah blah and she kinda... okay let me explain

So, her whole thing was about self expressionx wasn't it? She thought by helping Joker to express himself she would also manage to become genuine and free from societal chains but she actually found herself even more trapled. She lost herself. She didn't know who she was anymore.

When she had a pretty bad fight with Joker she realized all of that and left. But she kinda got her ass dragged to arkham in the process. Where she had a lot of time to think.

She spent a lot of time very depressed, her whole goal was to make people genuine and authentic individuals and she found herself being a shadow. Harley wanted a fresh start, so after shaving her head she started trying new things, reading new books and yeah experimenting overall. She enjoyed the idea of being a villain in the eyes of people if it meant being authentic, in a way, but she needed to find herself for that.

Fun fact, while she was Joker's shadow, she was called "The Columbine" after the character from commedia dell'arte, she changed it for "Harley Quinn" after that. Because it was cooler and sounded more like her.

She started to enjoy a lot drawing and skating and breaking shit. Hashtag self expression.

She met Ivy on arkham while she tried gardening, and Ivy went like "you suck at this" and they slowly fell in love and they are girlfrieneddsss!!!! :33

Harley tries to get along with everyone (she's one of the only people who KINDA can KINDA get along with Eddie but it's a very KINDA)

This is also a draft so yeah! She's bi and also ethnically jewish, not veeery religious but still enjoys her culture a lot.

She also knows how to play baseball. And is very good at rollerskating. And both at the same time. She sometimes does insane shit around gotham just because and it's very easy to know she went somewhere since everything is kinda thrown around and painted with graffiti and shit. She looves it!

She looks like future state her because i love that design so much

Ivy

Tw: cannibalism (oopsie!)

Scientist gone mad type of stuff. Straight up ecoterrorist, not a good person whatsoever.

Her backstory is very similar to unburied. Except there's a whole lot of murder and at some specific points cannibalism as a form of establishing dominance. Since all the ideas are kinda thrown around I'm unable to properly explain them in a "story time" way :(

She became a plant like monstrocity and managed to develop photosynthesis too (before that she straight up ate human meat because she refused to eat animals or plants).

She is a very obnoxious individual, but surprisingly quiet. She just looks at other people like she could murder them and they shut up. She is rude, overall mean but also kinda sensitive, specially when it comes to plants. She feels like she just wants to protect herself and others and doesn't see the evil in her actions, and she feels a lot of pain when plants are hurt. So her being mean is kind of a means of self defense, because chances are she cries a lot when she's alone.

She used to feel like she was weak, useless, so she found a way to become powerful and used that against people who hurt her, who hurt her plants.

Her appearence is silly because it's like, kinda similar to sale's version of her hair wise, and body wise it's complicated. She cannot wear clothes since they physically hurt, she is green and like. There's probably a whole ecosystem inside her lol. Her eyes are also kinda funky.

She loves Harley a lot, and her hair even blossoms when she's around her. Harley teaches her to be angry, sad, to be herself and she cares a lot about her. Harley's probably the only human Ivy genuenely cares about.

She's also a lesbian because I'm a lesbian and I said so????

She spends a lot of time quiet and unmoving inside arkham's gardens, maybe humming to herself. She looks like a plant and it's quite creepy. In a good way!

***

Okay so that's kinda all I have aksjaksj sorry for HOW HUGE scarecrow's bit is I'm. Mentally unwell. Very normal about him.

Also the amount of self projection here was insane sorry abt that.

Yay! :D

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beepboop358 · 3 years

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A Prom in S4 Theory & Music Coding Predictions

Some leaked set pics indicate that there MAY BE a junior/senior prom at Hawkins High, which they are calling the "Lover's Ball". It's unclear if this prom will be included on screen, or if it will just be mentioned as an event coming up at Hawkins High because this flyer could just extra set decor. Regardless if the prom happens on screen or not, there will probably be some tension about 'who's asking who' to the prom that we will see in s4. Given that this picture was just leaked a few weeks ago, it probably falls closer to the end of the season sequentially.

Having a big school dance in s4 is suspiciously close to how they had the Snowball scene in s2. This would certainly follow the even/odd season patterns, (and actually add to the list of the patterns), which kind of makes me think we will see this prom on screen, or at the very least it will be mentioned in the course of the season.

The Duffer Brothers love Steven King and reference his work and especially 'IT' a lot in the show, but they haven't done anything with Carrie yet so maybe we will get a Carrie moment this season at the prom...

Carrie was on the video store fridays movie inspiration board for ST4.

At the "Lover's Ball", there will be definitely be some music coding relating to Byler. Since music coding is kind of a key thing in the show, I've been rifling through 80's songs to try and find some that may fit with s4's themes/character storylines (and I may do a seperate post about that later), but for this post I'm just gonna focus on what they might use at the prom for relating to Byler.

Since the season is most likely going to take place in 1986, I only selected songs that had a compatible release year so it would be historically accurate. (these songs would also be great for a byler playlist!)

Some strong contenders for the songs that might play at the prom to reference Mike and Will's relationship could be:

"True Colors" by Cyndi Lauper (1986)

This song is honestly too good of an option for them not to use. I'm reallllyyy crossing my fingers for this one.

It's hard to take courage In a world full of people You can lose sight of it all And the darkness inside you Can make you feel so small

"And I see your true colors Shining through I see your true colors And that's why I love you So don't be afraid (don't be afraid) To let them show your true colors True colors are beautiful (you're beautiful, oh) Like a rainbow Oh oh oh oh oh like a rainbow"

If this world makes you crazy And you've taken all you can bear You call me up Because you know I'll be there

"Heaven" by Bryan Adams (1984)

This first verse is literally just the story of Byler... 😭 The rest of the song applies but that verse verse is just sooooo accurate. (I'm crossing my fingers for this one too)

"Oh thinkin' about all our younger years There was only you and me We were young and wild and free Now nothing can take you away from me We've been down that road before But that's over now You keep me comin' back for more

Baby you're all that I want When you're lyin' here in my arms I'm findin' it hard to believe We're in heaven And love is all that I need And I found it there in your heart Isn't too hard to see We're in heaven

Oh once in your life you find someone Who will turn your world around Bring you up when you're feelin' down Yeah nothin' can change what you mean to me Oh there's lots that I could say But just hold me now 'Cause our love will light the way"

"Take My Breath Away" by Berlin (1986)

This song is on Will's Spotify playlist, and I thought it could also be used at the prom since it's a romantic song. I see it as an 'entrance to the prom' moment song, almost like a 'first look' - like the Mike and El moment at the snowball when she first walks in, but with Mike and Will this time. I think the lyrics clearly hint to this kind of 'first look' moment as well.

"Watchin' every motion in my foolish lover's game On this endless ocean, finally lovers know no shame Turning and returning to some secret place inside Watchin' in slow motion as you turn around and say...take my breath away"

Watchin' every motion in this foolish lover's game Haunted by the notion, somewhere there's a love in flames Turning and returning to some secret place inside Watchin' in slow motion as you turn my way and say...take my breath away"

"In The Air Tonight" by Phil Collins (1981)

This song was originally meant to be included in the snowball scene from s2, but it ultimately was not used and "Every Breath You Take" was used for this scene instead. Since it was intended to be a part of the s2 dance, that's why I think it may be used at the prom this season. (you can read the scripts on 8flix)

——— I forgot to include this explanation originally BUT, I think this song might be used to show some anger/resentment between the two, and to show a decent amount of tension, depending on their development this season. Like maybe Mike is kind of leading Will on in private by continuing to initiate intimate scenes between them, but in public Mike is still trying to put on his “straight boy act” and kind of being a jackass about it, and this song could be used to show the tension between them that has caused.

"And I've been waiting for this moment, for all my life, (Oh lord)

Well, I was there and I saw what you did I saw it with my own two eyes So you can wipe off that grin, I know where you've been It's all been a pack of lies.

Well I remember, I remember don't worry How could I ever forget It's the first time, the last time we ever met But I know the reason why you keep this silence up

No you don't fool me The hurt doesn't show, but the pain still grows It's no stranger to you and me"

"In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel (1986)

Some of the lyrics in this song just SCREAMS byler, just look at the 1st, 2nd and 4th paragraphs. I would be suprised if they didn't use this song in either s4/s5.

Love, I get so lost sometimes Days pass and this emptiness fills my heart When I want to run away I drive off in my car But whichever way I go I come back to the place you are

All my instincts, they return The grand facade, so soon will burn Without a noise, without my pride I reach out from the inside

In your eyes The light, the heat (in your eyes) I am complete (in your eyes) I see the doorway (in your eyes) To a thousand churches (in your eyes) The resolution (in your eyes) Of all the fruitless searches (in your eyes)

Love, I don't like to see so much pain So much wasted and this moment keeps slipping away I get so tired working so hard for our survival I look to the time with you to keep me awake and alive

"Heroes" by David Bowie (1975)

David Bowie was bisexual. A cover of his song “Heroes” is used in the show twice already, sung by Peter Gabriel. The song plays when they pull Will's fake body out of the water in season one and Mike cries in his Mom's arms, with some very queer-coded lyrics in the background, and after Hopper's letter in s3 (which is very Byler-centric)

"I will be king. And you, you will be queen 'Cause we're lovers, and that is a fact. Yes, we're lovers, and that is that. Though nothing will keep us together. We could steal time just for one day We can be heroes forever and ever. What d'you say? I, I wish I could swim, like dolphins, like dolphins could swim I, I can remember (I remember) Standing by the wall (By the wall) And the guns shot above our heads (Over our heads) And we kissed as though nothing could fall (Nothing could fall) And the shame was on the other side. Oh, we can beat them forever and ever. Then we could be heroes just for one day We're nothing, and nothing will help us Maybe we're lying, then you better not stay But we could be safer just for one day"

I just thought the above songs might be some highly likely possibilities given that they fit the year of the s4 and also make references to not only love, but the idea of hiding, pain, shame, longing, etc., and can make some (partially stretching here) references to other things in the show such as:

RAINBOWS and TRUE COLORS, SHINING THROUGH (rainbows imagery is always associated with Mike & Will in the show and a is symbol of lgbtq+ pride, True Colors shining through = who you really are on the inside finally coming out)

IF THIS WORLD MAKES YOU CRAZY ("crazy together", "only love makes you that crazy" and references the "world" motif in the show)

YOUNGER YEARS, ONLY YOU AND ME, YOUNG, WILD AND FREE (references "not wanting things to change" and wanting "to make things go how they were" part in Hopper's letter, and the "But we're not kids anymore" comment during the Byler fight)

ENDLESS OCEAN and SWIM, LIKE DOLPHINS (references water's significance in the show)

FLAMES (Will in front of the burning car in s4 teaser?)

LIES and LYING (Mike lying to El about how he feels)

INSTINCTS RETURNING, FACADES BURNING, WITHOUT MY PRIDE, I REACH OUT FROM THE INSIDE (Mike's feelings for Will are his instincts, the facade is the act he put on in s3 to seem straight, burning could reference Will & fire, and I think the last 2 lines of that 2nd verse reference vulnerability- perhaps in an apology/confession)

I GET SO LOST (confusion about his sexuality, feeling lost without the other) and SO MUCH WASTED TIME (known each other since kindergarten but were unaware the other felt the same way/was dealing with same things, they could have been even closer)

KINGS and QUEENS (the d&d game mike wrote where he has king Tristan give him a medal in s1)

STEALING TIME (references "turning back the clock, to make things go how they were" part in Hopper's letter and the time theme in s4 and time is central to the s4 plot)

AND WE KISS - AND THE SHAME (references the shame they both feel about being gay since it was so stigmatized in the 80's)

Byler @ Prom Possibilities:

If Mike and Will did dance together at the prom, they will probably get bullied because they live in a small conservative town. They will probably either run out, upset, or Eleven will step in to protect them which could lead to the Carrie moment.

Or Mike and Will will not dance together in the actual dance room, but instead sneak off to somewhere else in the school and have a private Byler dance moment where they can't be teased and it's just them together.

OR Mike and Will are still acting weird at this point in the season because neither of them is communicating what needs to be said out of fear, or one of them has confessed or done something to indicate how they feel, but the other hasn’t so everything is weird between them. There would be lots of tension from this and we would get lots of longing looks and adoring moments between the two of them from the sidelines. (I think this one is the most likely)

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variousqueerthings · 3 years

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Daniel LaRusso: A Queer Feminine Fairytale Analysis Part Two of Three

Part 1

Part 3

6. Sexual Awakenings part 1: Love, Obsession, & Size Differences

[Insert that post talking about the creators making sure that Daniel’s antagonists were much bigger than him so that the audience would sympathise, spawning 10000 size kink fics]

I’m sure this won’t awaken anything in Daniel

Corporate wants you to find the difference between these two pictures

The hallmark of feminine fairytales tends to be growing into womanhood, with all those symbolic sexual under/overtones, searching for a prince, encountering monsters (or evil stepmothers), on the surface tending to be quite passive/reactive, but actually being about young girls and women getting out of their environment and choosing to tussle with those deep, dark desires – monsters. They’ve got to function within the limitations of power that they have – escaping an abusive situation through marriage, chasing forbidden desires under the guise of duress, asking questions about sexuality through things like symbolic plucking (flowers) or consumption (fruit) or pricking (needles), etc.

Daniel isn’t striking out to find his fortune or win a girl or a kingdom Like A Man, he’s not a threat to Silver, who – like Jareth in Labyrinth – is in control for almost the whole of the narrative, he’s not actually able to do much more than react until he makes the decision to stop training, and even then he’s immediately ganged up on and assaulted, needing to be saved by Miyagi while he stands and watches, bloodied and bruised.

Daniel’s journey in the third movie is to be forced into an impossible situation, seduced by Silver, and then prove that whatever violence Silver did to him isn’t enough to destroy him. It is incredibly similar to Sarah’s in Labyrinth, who by the end declares: “you have no power over me,” and that’s her winning moment. Not strength, not wits, not a direct fight, (although Daniel does fight Barnes and gets beat up again – only winning in in the end by taking him by surprise, unlike in TKK1 or TKK2 where you could argue that he proves himself to be a capable physical opponent to Johnny and Chozen), but by declaring that whatever power was held over her is now void.

Daniel’s narrative isn’t satisfying in the same way, because the dynamic of Silver and Daniel only accidentally emulates this - it’s not an intention on the side of the film-makers.

When Miyagi tells Daniel that he has strong roots, when he tells him not to lose to fear and Daniel wins over Barnes (in an almost fairytale-esque set of events), on paper he’s defeated whatever hold Terry Silver has over him. In the film itself though, Daniel never defeats Silver (which will likely be confirmed once he returns in Season Four). Daniel cannot simply say “you have no power over me,” and see Silver shattered into glass shards.

The film is a contradiction: It wants to be a masculine sports film, but it exists in the same realm as Goblin Kings seducing young girls with the promise of: “Just fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave.” Unlike Sarah, Daniel doesn’t claim the power that’s been promised to him on his own terms. His subtextually sexual awakening is so corrupted that all he can do is pretend it never happened.

Still, Daniel proves in the film that his strength is not in his fists. It’s in his praying to the bonsai tree that’s healed despite a violent boy brutally tearing it in two.

These looks on Daniel and Silver though?

So why does Silver become obsessed with him? What’s up with all those red outfits (that he doesn’t wear in Cobra Kai)? What does the temptation reveal about Daniel? How does it recontextualise TKK1 and TKK2? Is Daniel bisexual? (yes).

Ah, beach-Daniel, in your red hoodie and your cut-off jorts. Iconic hot-girl summer vibes.

If you didn’t want me over-analysing this, you shouldn’t have put him in so many red outfits and then have this man leering at him like he wants to eat him alive.

Surface-level it’s not hard to read into a Dude Story: Masculine power fantasies are about strength in a very direct way. Fighting, control, suaveness – and if you’re not the most traditionally masculine of guys, asserting dominance through being a good lover or intelligent or overcoming that unmanliness in some way through beating the bully or convincing the hot girl to go out with you, levelling up in coolness. Being A Man. It’s not too dissimilar from Daniel’s arc in the first movie, if you watch it without taking later events into account, although Daniel is never interested in proving himself as a man, and more in making Miyagi proud. Still, he does win and gain respect, and arguably “get the girl,” although Ali’s interest in him was never dependent on the fight.

7. Sexual Awakenings Part 2: Sexual Assault, Liberation, and Queerness

Feminine power fantasies are often about sex. Metaphorically. More accurately it’s “owning sexuality.” Even more accurately: “Freedom.” They also inhabit a fluid space in which empowerment through monstrous desires and non-consent can happen at the same time. And on top of that, many of these “fantasies” are actually being written by men, so whose fantasy is it really? A lot of them are based in oral traditions so presumably they were originally from the mouths of women, even if modern iterations (starting with Grimm’s collections) are filtered through cis men’s perspectives.

All of that being acknowledged: In Angela Carter’s “The Company Of Wolves,” Red Riding Hood unambiguously sleeps with the wolf. Belle discovers her freedom from expectations and unsuitable suitors (and in some versions, evil stepsisters) by falling in love with a Beast (the original novel was written by a woman, the 18th century Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve). Jareth informs Sarah of his obsessive devotion to her in Labyrinth. To lean into horror for a moment – Buffy is stalked and eventually has relationships with both Angel and Spike, Lucy in Coppola’s Dracula (which I have mixed feelings about) is raped by the werewolf and Mina is stalked by Dracula, The Creature Of The Black Lagoon kidnaps Kay (the lead’s girlfriend) – subverted in both The Shape Of Water in which Eliza forms a consensual relationship with the amphibious sea-god and in the short-lived horror series Swamp Thing, in which the connection is purposefully framed as seductive…

and in The Karate Kid Part Three Daniel LaRusso punches a board until his hands bleed because an attractive, older man tells him to and in this moment he gives in to what he (thinks he) wants.

Not all of those examples are equal. Some are consensual, some are hinted as abusive and/or stalkery, all of them have large age gaps, and a few are outright non-consensual.

But they’re all fantasies.

They’re all power-fantasies.

Except for Daniel, because he’s a man and the idea that being obsessed (lusted) over by an older man who keeps you in his thrall, specifically because you tickle his fancy for whatever reason, because you’re beautiful, breakable, different – could in any way be considered empowering is a difficult concept to wrap your head around. It doesn’t contain that “but I’m a good girl, I’d never go off the path and pluck flowers if a bad wolf told me to, honest,” societal context or the social context of rape culture. It’s closest comparison is closeted (perhaps even unknown until that point) queer identity.

There have recently been some comparisons of Daniel LaRusso to Bruce Bechdel in Funhome (and everyone who says that Ralph Macchio ought to play him in the upcoming movie: you’re right and I’m just not going to enjoy it as much without him). I’ve written a post about Sam being the heir to his legacy and trauma, specifically as a queercoded man. It’s not dissimilar to the plot of Funhome in a lot of ways.

The other interesting source that’s been going around in connection with Daniel is the essay “The Rape of James Bond,” which discusses the use of sexual assault as a plot device for women and not for men: “About one in every 33 men [in the US] is raped. … [your statistically average, real life man] … doesn’t have a horde of enemies explicitly dedicated to destroying him. He doesn’t routinely get abducted, and tied up. Facing a megalomaniac psychopath gloating over causing him pain […] is not the average man’s average day at the office.” That last bit is just a descriptor of Terry Silver, (although I take issue at the blasé use of psychopath).

The two part youtube essay Sexual Assault of Men Played for Laughs posits that there is nothing more de-masculinising than the threat of sexual assault and therefore any narrative that features this “rightfully” must mock any man who has been a victim or who fears being a victim of sexual assault. It is feminising. There is nothing more humiliating – and therefore unheroic – than a man dealing with sexual assault.

So what do we feel when we see an attractive young man being put into a vulnerable position by an older man? A trope associated with female characters, a trope that is considered unpalatable for men (see reactions that happened when the hint of sexual assault was introduced in Skyfall).

Was it the fact that he was being threatened, or the fact that James’ next line is: “what makes you think this is my first time?”

Some thoughts added by @mimsyaf are around the idea of safety in how a lot of cis women might relate to this narrative through Daniel’s eyes. He’s not a woman, he has – societally – more power than a girl or woman would have, which makes this a different watch to, say, if Danielle were to go through the same narrative. Daniel doesn’t carry that baggage of rape culture, or of the male gaze that you might find in a similar scenario of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Christine in Phantom of the Opera (and once more the age differences between these characters and the men who love/lust over them are substantial), which makes the narrative “safer” to engage with.

I agree with that, although as a transmasc person I also come at it differently. I specifically like to headcanon Daniel as a trans guy and find his fraught interactions with masculinity through his own non-toxic lens relatable, as well as the way other boys and men react to it – also I think Terry Silver is hot. I know there are people who write Terry Silver with female OCs, which is also a form of empowerment.

On the flipside putting Daniel in this space runs a risk of fetishising him as a queer youth who is either Innocent and Pure, or a bisexual stereotype that deserves to be assaulted for not being a real man. After all, Real Straight Men don’t run the risk of sexual assault.

Alas, the road to empowerment never did run smooth.

The comparisons between the way Daniel is treated by the text and how female characters are often treated in texts are undoubtedly there. Through Ralph Macchio and TIG’s casting and the direction and acting, but also within the text itself.

It might not be with the same purpose as Neo’s symbolically trans journey, but it puts the whole narrative that Daniel’s going through from TKK1 under a different light than if there had only been one movie that ended on a triumphant sports win and a girlfriend.

Johnny’s masculinity and the use of tears as liberation, now that’s a whole other analysis….

#daniel larusso #terry silver #the karate kid part three #the karate kid #cobra kai #ck #cobra kai meta #part two of three #we're going into labyrinth and james bond in this one fellas #(non-gendered fellas)

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rainingpouringetc · 3 years

Text

but god i want to feel again

written for alastair pain day 2021 (even though it’s two days late) title from ‘touch’ by sleeping at last, which i listened to on repeat while writing

tw for brief implied period-typical racism, abuse, alcoholism, bullying, toxic relationships

read on ao3

all i want is to flip a switch before something breaks that cannot be fixed.

invisible machinery, these moving parts inside of me well, they’ve been shutting down for quite some time, leaving only rust behind.

well i know, i know- the sirens sound just before the walls come down. pain is a well-intentioned weatherman predicting God as best he can, but God i want to feel again, oh God i want to feel again.

~‘touch’ sleeping at last

---

Alastair rolled his shoulders back. He’d done this a hundred times before. It never got easier.

“Come on, now, Baba,” he groaned, lifting his father’s arm across his shoulder. Elias mumbled something incoherent and drooped further, stumbling over his own feet as he was dragged over the cobblestones. “Time to go home,” Alastair murmured, silently tallying how many times he had taken this exact route from this exact tavern in just the past month.

Twelve years old and he knew the location of every pub in every city he’d ever lived.

Their house was visible just up ahead—the third they’d lived in this year. Alastair noted that all the lights were out and thanked whatever god was listening. He couldn’t deal with redirecting Cordelia’s questions on top of getting his father cleaned up. Tonight was already draining enough.

He managed to get Elias up the steps and into the washroom with less trouble than usual, a sign that his father was perhaps more lucid than he’d originally believed. The clock on the mantle had read just past midnight—perhaps he was just tired as well.

“‘M fine, ‘m fine,” Elias slurred as Alastair attempted to wipe his damp forehead with a wet cloth, pushing his son’s hand away.

Alastair huffed and set the cloth aside before turning to rummage through the cabinet for a glass. They always kept a glass in the washroom for times like this. He filled it halfway and offered it to his father. When Elias only glared at it, slumping down on the seat and leaning heavily on the wall, Alastair held the glass to his lips and tipped it back, forcing him to drink.

When he pulled the glass back—his father having blessedly drunk it all without much of a fight—Elias stood abruptly. He was still quite drunk and thus swayed on his feet for several long moments. Alastair leaped forward to steady him, but was immediately pushed away with all the force of a heroic—however disgraced—Shadowhunter.

Alastair hit the wall hard and gasped as the breath whooshed out of him. His head spun—had he hit it? He must have—and his vision blackened at the edges. Elias was still struggling to keep himself upright. Alastair watched as he took a step and immediately crumpled to the ground. He stumbled forward yet again, trying to help, wanting to help, but his father cried out and Alastair froze in place. The last thing he needed was his mother—or, worse, his sister—hearing the noise and coming to investigate.

Alastair looked down and realized that at some point he’d dropped the glass. It had shattered on the floor. Head still spinning, he bent down to try to gather it together, instantly cutting his hands. He inhaled sharply, ignoring the pain and sweeping the remains into a small pile in the corner. He could ask Risa for helping taking it out in the morning.

His hand was bleeding rather substantially, blood running over the Voyance rune on the back. The only Mark he had.

“Are you alright, Baba?” he asked quietly, careful not to speak loud enough to agitate his father’s headache.

“‘M fine,” Elias repeated. “Go to bed, Alastair. I’ll be just fine on my own.”

Alastair didn’t believe it for a second. He stood and carefully maneuvered his father’s arm around his shoulders again. He couldn’t risk taking him up the stairs—Elias might fall, or someone might hear. There was a small room just down the hallway that Alastair had left his father in on numerous occasions to sleep off a hangover. It seemed tonight would be another one.

He shouldered the door open and deposited his father on the couch, making sure to leave him on his side and support his head with a few pillows. He knew he shouldn’t leave his father alone. Something could happen, and if Elias died because he suffocated on his own vomit there would be no one to blame but Alastair and his selfishness. But his hands were throbbing now, and his stele was upstairs in his room. He took the stairs two at time, skipping the ones that creaked the most, and shut the door gently behind him.

As soon as it was closed, Alastair slumped down against it, trying to steady his breathing. In, hold. Out, hold. In, hold. Out, hold. Over and over until the spinning stopped, until he could think again.

His stele was on his desk. His mother had given it to him last year, claiming it was a birthday present. Alastair knew it was because she’d spotted the bruises on his arms.

For a moment, Alastair considered leaving the cuts be. They would scar if he did, and it would hurt until then. But Alastair would revel in the pain, in the ability to feel something—anything—besides dull fear and numbness. It was the direction he knew he was heading towards. If he allowed it to consume him—

No. He wouldn’t let it. He wouldn’t let it change him.

Carefully, Alastair picked up the stele. It stung where it pressed against his cuts. He traced an iratze flawlessly and held his hand away to survey his work.

Practice makes perfect, he thought wryly.

---

Alastair sat almost fully turned around in his seat on the carriage, watching as Cirenworth disappeared into the distance. Cordelia, who had run behind them down the lane, struggling to keep up, had long since faded into nothingness.

“Turn front or you’ll fall off the moment we hit a bump,” Elias snapped from beside him. Alastair did as he was told, stubbornly looking anywhere but at his father.

Alastair did not understand why his father had insisted on seeing him to the Academy. Alone. There would be no one to make sure he returned in one piece, no one to steer him away from welcoming taverns or haul him out of a pub before he drank himself to death.

But for once, Alastair found he didn’t particularly care. He was going to the Academy, and his father’s health would no longer be his primary concern—his primary burden. He would be around children his own age. He would have a chance to finally—finally—make friends.

It was much more exciting and nerve wracking than he’d expected.

Cordelia had Lucie, a fact that Alastair was endlessly grateful for. But he was all alone. Cordelia could hardly count as a friend. She was his sister, after all, and therefore obligated to tolerate him, yes, but also to tease him at every available opportunity.

This was something he couldn’t risk messing up. He needed this. He was more desperate than he wished to admit.

Alastair spent the remainder of the journey in silence, shutting down all of his father’s attempts at conversation with a stoic nod or by blatantly ignoring him. It wasn’t his favorite method, but he truly could not deal with his father making him more nervous than he already was.

When they finally arrived at the Academy, Alastair’s stomach was a jumbled mess of nerves and whatever he’d eaten for breakfast—he couldn’t even remember at this point. He was too busy praying his father would leave before he could embarrass Alastair.

The universe wouldn’t give him a break, though.

Elias clapped his son on the shoulder and insisted on helping carry his bags up to the dorms. He nearly slipped on the stairs four times. He dropped the bags twice. Alastair wanted to crawl into a hole by the time they arrived. His roommate was nowhere to be seen—likely they hadn’t arrived yet—so Alastair went to stand beside the bed nearest the window. His father dropped the bags to the floor beside the other bed.

“No, Father, this one,” he said, pointing.

Elias blinked at him. “This bed is closer to the door,” he told Alastair, speaking slowly as if the implications should be obvious.

“I know. I just—I want the one closer to the window is all,” Alastair stammered, face hot. What did it matter? In a minute his father would leave and he could take whichever bed he liked most.

“Closer to the door is safer,” Elias insisted, sitting down on the bed and folding his hands together.

Alastair simply nodded, trying to play along. He might’ve gotten away with it, too, if the door hadn’t burst open at just that moment, revealing a slightly disheveled looking boy. Alastair assumed this was to be his roommate then.

“You’ve chosen your bed already then?” the boy said without preamble, nodding to where Alastair’s bags were sitting next to his father.

“He has,” Elias answered.

The boy nodded and swung his bags up to rest on the bed next to the window. Alastair swallowed thickly and said, “Thank you for your help, Father, but I think I’m alright now.”

Elias grinned. “Of course you are. I’ll be on my way then.” He stood and strode to the door, turning to say, “Goodbye, Alastair joon.” He disappeared into the stairwell.

Alastair turned to his roommate to find the boy was staring at him. “What was that he called you?” the boy questioned a bit rudely.

“Joon?” The boy nodded. “It’s Persian,” Alastair said hesitantly. “It’s just—something you call people you care about.”

The boy wrinkled his nose. “That’s weird.” Alastair flushed. Before he could defend himself, the boy stuck out a hand. “Piers Wentworth.”

Alastair took his hand. “Alastair Carstairs.”

Piers’ eyes widened. “Carstairs? As in—was that Elias Carstairs?”

Alastair nodded, confused at his tone. “He’s my father.”

“Your father?” Alastair nodded again. Piers dropped his hand. “I heard he spends most of his time at the bottom of a bottle.”

Before Alastair could process the words fully, Piers pushed past him and was gone from their room. When the words hit him, Alastair picked up the first thing he could find—a volume of poetry from his bag—and threw it as hard as he could at the wall.

---

Alastair wasn’t sure when he started to become numb. He thought it might’ve been sometime during winter, when Augustus Pounceby kicked him down the stairs and he broke two ribs. Or perhaps it was after that, when Piers locked him out of their room overnight and he slept curled up in an alcove, waking to find Augustus and his friends crowded around him, laughing.

All he knew was that it was a slap in the face the first time he heard his sister’s name come out of one of their mouths. It was Augustus who had said it—said something so awful Alastair’s mind had blocked it out immediately. All he registered was Cordelia and danger.

That was the last straw.

He’d grown used to their abuse, to their snide comments and kicks and punches, but if there was one thing that could snap him out of this it was his determination to protect his sister. She was too young, too kind, for this. He wasn’t too numb not to protect her a bit longer.

The next day when Augustus and his gang cornered Alastair again, he made sure there was a clear sight of some of the dregs—the mundane students. Alastair had tried to befriend them as well. They had turned him away, exclaiming that they didn’t realize they allowed people like him in the school. What should he care if a few of them were hurt to save himself and his sister?

The moment Augustus looked like he was going to make his move, Alastair made his, raining down insult after witty insult on the small group of dregs watching on. Augustus stared at him in surprise, then burst into laughter, even joining in once he regained his balance. Piers was there too, and Clive—soon enough the whole lot of them had turned their attention from Alastair and were focused solely on those poor mundanes.

It happened again, and again. Soon enough, Augustus and his friends weren’t seeking Alastair out to kick him around—they were seeking him out for help in their own schemes.

Is this who I’ve become? Alastair wondered faintly as Clive pulled him along down a corridor, speaking rapidly about a prank they were going to play on a few of the girls.

The numbness began to creep back in, diluting the anger and pain of which he’d long been so afraid.

---

Things were different, certainly, when Alastair returned from the Academy. Cordelia managed to pry some of it out of him, but he couldn’t allow her to see the full picture. That would mean telling her about their father’s drinking, and even he wasn’t so selfish as to tell her that yet.

The years passed, and Alastair allowed that numb shell to solidify and thicken, dampening the swirling mass of indignation and heartbreak that lay beneath.

And then he met Charles Fairchild.

Or, really, he met Charles again. They had seen each other—talked, even—at various Shadowhunter functions whenever the Carstairs were near London or whenever the Fairchilds were traveling to an Institute near them. Alastair had always picked Charles out effortlessly at such events, with his slicked back red hair and piercing green eyes.

Alastair knew better than to pretend he did not find Charles attractive. It had been no secret to himself that he preferred men—he’d known it since before the Academy, really. But it also wasn’t as if he’d had any opportunity to act on it.

So, when he was sixteen and in Paris for a few months, when he saw Charles again and the man dropped one too many thinly veiled hints, Alastair allowed himself to be swept away by the romance of it all—the mystery and charm and utter newness that came with Charles and all he represented.

It was wonderful those first months. Perhaps not what Alastair had expected. He supposed he hadn’t thought there would be quite so many rules, but Charles was very insistent. No one could suspect a thing. It was exhilarating.

Until it wasn’t.

He didn’t know when, exactly, it shifted from exciting and new to tedious and tense. Perhaps it was when Charles became engaged to Ariadne. Perhaps it was after the first dozen or so broken promises. Perhaps it was when Alastair realized a life with Charles was a life with doors shut and curtains drawn.

But who was he to complain? That was life, wasn’t it? Few people in the world were lucky enough to have a perfect whirlwind romance, and those who did often left others in the dust.

And Charles liked Alastair, had told him he loved him. He smiled at Alastair and didn’t act like he was a waste of space.

So while that numb shell stayed firmly in place to keep everyone else away, Alastair propped open a back door for Charles to come and go in his life as he pleased.

They didn’t see each other as often as Alastair would have liked, and when they were apart they didn’t risk sending letters—“Letters can be intercepted! Opened and read without your consent,” Charles had explained—but that didn’t stop Alastair from dreaming of a time when they could be together without the strings of society attached.

He dreamed of a time when he could feel again.

So he let the little things slide. When Charles and Ariadne didn’t split up when Charles had said they would, Alastair just said, “Next time.” When Charles chose Clave meeting after Clave meeting over Alastair, Alastair simply attended the meetings himself for a chance to see Charles.

And when Charles pushed him away at every oncoming footstep, every creak of the floorboard, Alastair pretended not to see the fear and shame in his eyes.

---

Alastair decided that Thomas Lightwood was the single most lovely person to have ever existed on the planet.

He also decided that he must be loopy from the exhaustion of the day because he’d never been prone to such sickeningly sweet thoughts before.

But he couldn’t deny it either. There was something in the way he wore his heart on his sleeve that made Thomas so approachable, so loveable.

Alastair found himself wishing he could bottle up this whole day and carry it around with him wherever he went. This whole murder trial business was far more bearable with Thomas there with him.

And yet—all good things must come to an end. Alastair knew it, perhaps better than anyone. And this… this was too good a thing to last very long.

Alastair did not wish to hurt Thomas. Thomas was good and kind and all the things Alastair never had been. Beyond all possible expectations, Thomas had entered the small group of people for which Alastair would do anything.

Even if it meant pushing him away.

Thomas was grieving. Alastair knew that. He knew that it was messing with Thomas’ head, making him act more recklessly and crave things that were bad for him. Alastair didn’t want to be bad for Tom—he wanted desperately to be good for him. But that couldn’t happen until things changed.

If they ever did.

If anyone would ever be willing to step forward and claim their feelings for him without fearing embarrassment or shame. If anyone would ever be willing to open the door for him and let him step out into the light.

At this point it was almost second nature to pull away from his touch, turn his eyes down and let the lies roll off his tongue. If he closed his eyes, he could almost ignore the sound of his own heart cracking.

As he strode away from him—from that single loveliest person to have ever existed—Alastair wondered if this would do it, if this would be the thing to push him over the edge and break something in him that couldn’t be fixed.

He could feel it—feel the gears inside him grinding to a halt and shutting down. Soon there would be nothing but rust left behind, and he would be blown away by the wind.

[tags - @littlx-songbxrd @anarmorofwords @foxglove-airmid @barbra-lightwood @lifewouldbebetteronmars @imherongraystairstrash @itsdaughterofthemoon @stxr-thxif @knifescythe @axoloteca ; i just used my standard taglist, sorry if you didn’t want to be tagged <3]

#tumblr doesn't copy italics so i prob missed some lol #if u read it on ao3 it'll be better tho #alastair pain day 2021 #alastair carstairs #charles (derogatory)#i love that tag #elias (derogatory)#ooh that one too #the last hours #coi spoilers #tlh fanfic #artie tries to write #tlh

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kitkatopinions · 3 years

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(Rabbithole Anon) Y'know, I was going to send in an ask about just they could have made a compelling way to show how some people may have become hunters through pressure rather than an age excuse if they wanted to say some people weren't ready (joining to protect a friend who wanted to be one, wanting to travel for a variety of reasons, it being a general expectation but the person being hesitant) but it led to me wondering wait, would certain careers require a hunting lisence?

Okay, I love this rabbit hole. XD It illustrates a couple of RWBY problems here and it's the fact that they often are lacking in the character development/character journey department, and that they're often lacking in the world building department.

We actually have plenty of characters that can serve as examples for people who maybe should've thought twice about entering the Academy (when they did.) There are people who entered the Academy for the wrong reasons/not noble reasons, people who entered the Academy during a time they might not have been ready, and people who would be full on dangerous with a Hunter badge, and most of our mains fall under one of these categories (though mostly the first two.)

Ruby - Two years below the standard age of her class. Whether or not she was at the skill level of a first year (she was,) and whether or not she'd received special training from Qrow (she had,) Ruby was still essentially a kid, and her mind and body both hadn't developed completely. Ruby should have been traumatized after the Fall of Beacon and been allowed to show that more as a character, she should've had straight up PTSD, she should've been allowed to have emotion in Volume 4 than Jaune's sidekick who makes sad eyes when she sees him grieving. Weiss - Her main motivation for joining Beacon was to reclaim her family legacy. Yes, her desire was to reclaim it and use it for good, but it was still arguably more about personal and familial glory. On top of that, Weiss has been blatantly anti Faunus and has never so much as addressed that. Weiss's character journey should have reflected more personal growth, and either her unlearning much of her Faunus racism and clearly changing priorities from her name and family legacy and onto the actual people in need, or her flaws should've led her into being more of a morally gray character who displays her selfishness and pride (in a way that's actually addressed and treated like a flaw.) Yang - She expresses admiration for people like Ruby who want to help people and be kind, but her main point in becoming a Huntress was getting thrills and going where the wind takes her. She didn't join Beacon for any sort of serious purpose, and even when she rejoined Team RWBY in volume five, it was to be with her sister and not because of her own morals (not that I think she's lacking in morals, just that her main motive was different.) This could lead to her having to figure out a lot of what she actually wants, being unsatisfied with being a Huntress in Atlas, being in over her head when things get serious, being more mentally exhausted than the others after long days, etc. Jaune - Wasn't ready to enter Beacon. Idk if he just wasn't allowed to go to a lesser combat school like Signal or if he flunked out, but he wasn't up to scratch to get into Beacon and cheated his way in. On top of that, he lacked in the emotional maturity department as well when he entered. Jaune was a little more invested in his own appearance than Ruby was, but still seemed to have similar good reasons for wanting to be a Hunter. And he did grow a lot. But he was much less prepared, skilled, or equipped to deal with the training or the career and it's a miracle he didn't die in the initiation. Granted, Jaune was handled arguably better than anyone else, since a lot of this was addressed, but these days it feels like it isn't actually playing a part in his character anymore that he's way below the people around him, and I feel like it should still be impacting him. Penny: Honestly, Penny seemed very newly born during the Beacon Arc. She might have been combat ready, but she also started spilling secrets to the first person who was a little bit nice to her, and was clearly naïve and childlike. Imagine if it had been Emerald that had befriended Penny instead of Ruby. Penny dying and then getting resurrected should've been deeply traumatizing for her and it should've made her undergo some major changes and been treated with importance in the show. Qrow: Literally wanted to be a Hunter in the first place to try and learn how to murder Huntsmen. He might have changed later and it’s not exactly relevant, but he arguably shouldn't have joined when he did either. Meanwhile, Nora's just one big mystery, because we don't know why she joined, and Ren likely joined for good reasons, but neither of them have ever actually talked about their motivations. The only character we can safely say joined for noble reasons and who was up to scratch and ready when she entered is Blake, who also had good reason to not fully trust the system she was working with, so there could've been complications and character interest there as well.

Please don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean I don't think the others should've been in school, I love that they were! I just think the writers should've explored the various ways they might've been not fully ready, not completely well suited to the job they took. The characters are allowed to be flawed and to flounder and it'd make them more full, nuanced characters imo.

On top of that, we have other Hunters to look to as well, outside of our main cast. Cardin, for example, was a terrible person, still in school and already abusing what little power he had to target a member of an oppressed minority group and blackmail other kids into doing his bidding, while plotting revenge on someone for correcting him on his anti-Faunus answer to a question. People like him should not be Hunters, and he was arguably our first sign (of many signs) that the position of Hunter can and will be taken advantage of and misused by bad people. And although the After the Fall/Before the Dawn books aren't canon, while reading BTD (I haven't finished it yet,) Coco and all her team members but Velvet also struck me as people I wouldn't want to be Hunters and wouldn't want to wield any sort of power. Coco is proudly described by one of her friends as sadistic, lets her unfounded opinions of people cloud her judgement, shows respect and admiration towards criminals, and enjoys her classmates being afraid of her. Fox is self-described as sadistic as well and is a bully who tried to use a classmate's phobia against them in a brute-like interrogation. And Yatsuhashi is leagues above the two of them, but also bullied Neptune despite saying the words 'I don't want to be a bully' and threatened him.

There are so many ways the writers could've explored people who went to Beacon too soon, weren't ready, or entered for the wrong reasons. Instead, outside of one conversation in season two about the girls’ motivations and Ren exploding that Jaune cheated his way into Beacon all the way in season eight, it seems like the only take away we're supposed to get is 'all these kids are officially the thing they wanted to be in the beginning and they're all amazing at it, woo!' No acknowledgement of the fact that they could use higher education still, that some of them are still immature or naïve, that some of them are still below the combat level they should be in, that some of them kinda haven't done super well since they left Beacon (cough Ruby cough.) It's all just... Flat, lackluster. And meanwhile, characters like Cardin were written out of the show easily. We've had plenty of examples of corruption in the Hunter business, but the show hasn't paid any attention to that and still is treating being a Hunter like the only true noble goal and the only good and non-corruptible way to defend people, despite the fact that it clearly isn’t. Being a Huntress is not better or safer or more noble in-universe than being an Atlas soldier/Ace Op/Atlas hunter. I’m not saying that all of this needed to be featured, but exploring the differences in motivation and how the Hunter lifestyle affected the various mains could really flesh out their characters. Instead, by the time everyone is heading to Atlas in volume six, they all pretty much have the same reactions to everything and the same motivations and the same beliefs. The rare deviation - like Ren in volume seven and eight - is treated as bad and a mistake that must be rectified, rather than... A natural consequence of the group being full of different people with different upbringings and different motivations that result in different opinions. That sort of thing is only ever explored as a problem that makes someone lacking, and it’s really weird and it makes the show feel... Juvenile, and lacking in nuance or depth when it comes to the characters, which is a really big shame, since the characters have a huge amount of potential and exploring the differences between them and their reactions to being in way over their heads would be - I think - the natural place to take their characters? Especially because so far their storyline has been... Not the highlight of the show.

But, as for how semblances and Hunters should impact the world building, there’s a lot to say about that! They don’t explore a lot in RWBY outside of what’s relevant to the mains, leaving the world building feeling flat and like the world itself doesn’t matter much. RWBY often feels more like a video game world than anything else, which I believe @why-i-hate-rwby-now has pointed out, so credit to them for helping me realize it. There’s one large location per continent and a couple small villages where they only really talk to a town leader and village blacksmith, or encounter a fight, relevant NPCs and characters only going to certain locations that can further the plot, characters only mattering through the ways they interact with the protagonists and seemingly getting benched with nothing to do if they aren’t currently plot relevant, health bars that can be monitored over scrolls, every weapon and semblance has a name even if that name isn’t ever mentioned in show or might not really make a lot of sense, frequently encountered enemies of various threat levels who the characters can plow down without remorse because they’re not sentient or don’t have souls... The list goes on. But one of the ways that it feels very video gamey is that the magical powers actually don’t seem to impact the world.

We know people can have auras even if they don’t have semblances (Mercury, Torchwick, Watts,) and we know lots of even grown people don’t have auras (the citizens of Mantle in danger of dying of cold while our aura having mains aren’t,) but also that auras can be unlocked, by well trained seventeen year olds (Pyrrha,) and we also know that semblances can be unlocked from a very young age due to trauma (Ren, Neptune in EU) but some people are born with their semblances (Qrow and notably Blake use language suggesting they were born with their semblances,) and some semblances are passed down or hereditary (the Schnees.) Semblances can be passive (Qrow, Clover, Ironwood in word of author,) and uncontrollable, or active (almost everyone else,) and some semblances have carried personal negative effects like in the case of Qrow who was even named for being bad luck and Robyn who said people were on edge with her because she can sus out the truth via skin contact when she wants to. Also Mercury’s father was able to somehow take away his semblance.

That’s... Pretty much the extent of our knowledge and it doesn’t tell us much. What RWBY does is give each character abilities that make them iconic and different from each other as fighters, with a shield function that wears down slowly to explain how they can take certain hits and keep going while also allowing them to eventually suffer higher damage when that shield wears down. They had a character get this shield ability unlocked to explain the existence and function of it, and featured some characters who didn’t have the super powered abilities like Roman, an early enemy meant to herald in new, harder enemies who are more plot relevant, and Mercury, who makes up for it by having higher speed and functions exclusive to him through his prosthetics. And then they seemingly built a regular world unaffected by these powers. It sounds like a video game. Civilians just don’t have this power or the shield because they act as non-playable characters. In a way, it almost makes sense to me in conception, because when RWBY was originally created, it was high on visual appeal, fight choreography, and character design. The plot elements were small and the character stories seemed to be pretty simple, the only real complication to this being the White Fang plot, which has always been a major blight in RWBY. But one of the reasons why this video-game feel kinda worked at the start of RWBY was because the story and characters weren’t meant to be the focus of the story, so although the world building at the start was definitely lacking, the audience knew that things like auras and semblances were meant to hype up and add interest to the main highlights of the show: Design and fight choreography. At least that’s what I assume. But in volume three, they started to lay the groundwork for more, bigger plots, more focus on the story, the characters journeying to the outside world, undergoing personal arcs, and that’s what V4 and onward started focusing on.

To be clear, I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. I started really liking RWBY for its potential and concepts after getting through the first couple episodes of V1, but I actually really enjoyed quite a bit of V4 and V5 even though the design drastically changed and the fighting had gone way down in quality because I found some of the new focus on characters and the plot to be compelling, interesting, or to also have a lot of potential (though I was let down over and over in regards to pay off later.) However, with the new focus on the characters and storyline rather than design and fight choreography, they really needed to do some legwork on fixing the aura and semblance systems and paying attention to world building and making sure the world felt well put together, nuanced, and real. And I don’t feel like they ever did that.

Why is Pyrrha able to unlock auras? Well, because the writers wanted to explain the concept of auras and used Jaune - the unprepared - to do it. But now, auras are actually an important part of the story - for example, the people of Mantle don’t have unlocked auras, so will die of cold, but it doesn’t affect our heroes because they do have unlocked auras. So who can unlock auras? Is it a learned skill or is it hereditary? If it’s a learned skill, why isn’t everyone eager to learn it especially in places where it’s life or death if they don’t like in Atlas? If it’s a hereditary skill, why aren’t the people who have that skill put on a pedestal and being pressured into using that skill to save civilians in places where having an aura is the difference between life and death? In either case, why aren’t there people who professionally unlock auras? Why aren’t they on the pay roll in Atlas and Mantle? If it’s a skill that all powerful hunters have, why aren’t our heroes (who we’re supposed to think are now more powerful than Atlas’s best) unlocking auras for dying children in Mantle? Why don’t specialists and longtime fighters with Qrow, Winter, Robyn, Maria, or James have this ability if it comes with skill, time, or talent?

Why are semblances unlocking or morphing in times of trauma so rare? Why didn’t the Fall of Beacon unlock loads of new semblances and new semblance abilities? Why didn’t Ruby get a new semblance upgrade when she saw Weiss getting stabbed? Why didn’t Weiss unlock a new semblance ability when her plane was crashing? Why didn’t Pilot Boi unlock his semblance during the same occasion? Why is it that Jaune didn’t get a semblance upgrade when the light bridges were disappearing? Why didn’t Blake get a semblance upgrade when Yang fell into the void? Why did Ren get a semblance upgrade because he was upset while with the Ace Ops after Oscar got captured, but Nora doesn’t get an upgrade while she’s electrocuting herself? If semblances sometimes unlock in times of truama, why is it that some characters like Oscar and Torchwick and Jaune pre-V5 who we know have encountered lots of trauma just still don’t get semblances? If you can train your semblance into upgrading, why is it that we don’t see long time hunters and fighters unlock more semblance abilities, like Qrow, Winter, Robyn, Maria, or James? It just doesn’t make any sense! And I get that stories always have things happening just because the writers want it, but in RWBY, the hand of the creator is so obvious that it’s ridiculous.

And then there are other questions. Do people avoid bad labor practices out of fear of causing a semblance awakening? Well, from what we see of the SDC, the answer is no. So why not? Why weren’t they worried about an uprising? Work rights becomes a lot trickier when you have to add in tons of qualifiers. Maybe it’s illegal to use a semblance at work, but the SDC also has a history of child workers like Adam who can’t always control it (like Neptune couldn’t control his,) so are there laws protecting child laborers? Perhaps not, since you know, they were already child laborers, so were already suffering unchecked. Are there laws forbidding the use of semblances in government buildings, non-combat driven schools, or parks and libraries? And meanwhile, how would any of this apply to people with a passive semblance? How do you figure out that someone has a passive semblance? How do people know if they’re born with a semblance? Are there people that spend their whole lives having semblances that never get discovered? Do people have semblance detection... Semblances, that they get paid to use or do so out of charity? Did the Schnees rise to power due to their powerful and hereditary semblance, perhaps? Are people discriminated against if they don’t have semblances or pressured to become Hunters if they discover they do have semblances? Shouldn’t civilians in Mantle and Atlas be joining combat schools in droves in the hopes of unlocking an aura so they can better survive? And shouldn’t there be discrimination against people with certain semblances? Outside of Robyn saying she’s personally experienced mistrust, and Qrow’s self-hatred, we don’t see any real prejudice against certain semblance types, or for that matter, any praise or extra significance pointed to certain other semblance types. It would go a long ways towards world building if there were things like people having to divulge their semblance or lack thereof before entering Beacon, or for people to have to register a semblance evolution, or for Emerald to have lied about her semblance because “everyone knows illusion semblances automatically draw suspicion,” or for Qrow to comment that he’d never seen Clover in a Vytal Tournament, only for Clover to say his semblance was deemed ‘cheating’ back when he was in school so he hadn’t qualified. And on the flip side, you could have things like semblances being judged as better and more powerful based on how useful it might be, Pyrrha keeping her semblance on the DL because it’ll just bring more unwanted admiration on her, Sun keeping his own semblance on the DL too because it always make people put a lot of expectations on him, while Neptune’s semblance leaks and he deals with people treating him like he’s selfish and cruel for not wanting to use his own “gift of a semblance.” And people like Jaune could be bullied extra because he doesn’t have his semblance yet, and people in the stands at the Vytal Tournament could be chatting about “when are they gonna pull out their semblances?” and get annoyed and pouty when people don’t. To be fair, we do get things like Mercury’s father having declared his semblance a crutch, but... Still. why isn’t there more of this?

And we see the need for Hunter protection in villages like Kuroyuri and the village that Team RNJR stops to help on the way to Mistral. Small villages outside of the four kingdoms fall to Grimm, or are in danger of falling to Grimm. Ships get attacked by large and dangerous Grimm, we see (corrupt) Hunters on the train to Argus, accompanying for safety, and we see that with a rise of Grimm activity in Mantle, Hunters are dispatched to help kids travel to school. In a world like RWBY, fighting is essential for survival outside of the Kingdoms, and became very essential in the kingdoms as well once schools started going down. You’d assume there should be Hunters accompanying everyone traveling outside of the Kingdoms, resident Hunters living in villages outside the Kingdoms as their on-hand protectors (and more than one Hunters seems to be needed.) Hunters also could be extra protection for anything that’s definitely going to increase negativity, like hiring Hunters to bodyguard funerals seems like something that could be normal in the world of Remnant, and for visiting graveyards (we see Ruby get attacked by tons of Grimm when she visited Summer’s grave in the red trailer.) On top of that, celebrities and rich people hiring Hunters seems like it’d become pretty common. But all that we see outside of Dee and Dudley are traveling Hunters stopping to help people out of the goodness of their heart while they go place to place, and Kingdom Hunters who are assigned to things like border control, clearing out Grimm near or in the Kingdoms, and things like that. What we see is a Kingdom-centered morality complex our protagonists are one hundred percent invested in, Hunters are Kingdom driven and anything outside of that is a kindness, a job they can take or leave in passing. And on top of that, it seems like there aren’t a lot of people in the Hunter profession, and I feel like there should definitely be more. There are people like Jaune who didn’t make the cut but accepted that, we can only assume that there are drop outs too, so like... How many kids are there actually in a year at Beacon? I mean, look at where the Relics were found in the forest during initiation at Beacon.

This gives us a rough idea of how many people are in each year at Beacon. Assuming everyone graduates school and there’s no drop outs and no deaths, that’s a graduating class of twenty. That’s a very small number, comparatively. The job of a Hunter is dangerous. We know of Hunters that died (Summer, Pyrrha, Amber.) We know a lot of Hunters that have other jobs that take a lot of their time (Glynda, Ozpin, Robyn,) and lots of people who quit being Hunters too (Maria, Tai, Raven,) and Hunters who aren’t always on the field like Qrow who was a teacher for a stretch and acted as Ozpin’s spy, the Ace Ops who became part of Ironwood’s inner circle and therefore had a bigger picture, and even all of Team RWBYJNR, who got their Hunter licenses but are also more concerned with bigger picture stuff (if you don’t believe me just look at volume eight where JRY stopped defending Mantle to go rescue Oscar, and Team RWBN + Penny, who were involved in big picture stuff like launching Amity and then saving Penny the Maiden/their friend.) So out of a class of twenty, how many of them are even staying on the field? For a show pushing the narrative that Hunters are the ultimate saviors who are the only true good defense for the world, that condemns even the notion of an army... Like they villainized sending Team FNKI onto the battlefield while also treating it like proof of Ironwood’s evil when he didn’t want to stay and fight when Team RWBY said to, and also made Ironwood’s desire to move into having a robotic army to get soldiers off of the battlefield part of his... Over reliance on machinery, which is full on suspicious considering their ableism towards Ironwood and the fact that he literally has to rely on machinery, but that’s a topic for a different post and this one is already so long. But yeah, my point is that we’re meant to see the army as bad. So if we’re meant to see Hunters as the only true and pure form of defense (which is already off because we know it’s corrupted,) there ought to be way more people in the Hunter field.

As for the schools, we only know of a couple of schools that exist outside of RWBY as combat schools that seem to act as basic training before people go to Beacon. We know of Signal, the school Ruby and Yang went to that Qrow was a teacher at for awhile (I have lots of teacher Qrow headcanons, but sadly Qrow being a teacher wasn’t very well explored,) and we also know of Sanctum in Mistral and (in the EU) Oscuro in Vacuo, presumably one of these existing in Atlas as well. I personally headcanon that there are a lot of these smaller combat schools littering the whole of Remnant (but then again, I also headcanon that the Kingdoms of Remnant are bigger than just one very large city, lol) and that a lot of people attend these schools even if they don’t go on to join one of the Hunter Academies, but this isn’t necessarily supported by canon, I think. But as for other schools...I think it’s fair to assume that there are at least elementary schools, since everyone can read, write, and presumably do basic math, and what we do know is that Ilia went to a prep school in Atlas (which was info dropped in Blake’s pre-V5 trailer, not even stated in the show proper,) so we can probably safely say that people who don’t go to the Huntsman academies go to some form of high school, but you’re right that we don’t see this actually in action. I personally always headcanon that Whitley had a tutor, since Jacques wanted to avoid too much outside influence.

I am so sorry that this response got so away from me and I myself got into so many rabbit holes as well. XD I just have a lot to say about the world building in RWBY (or sometimes lack thereof.) Although I admit that I’m not as into or as good at analyzing as blogs like why-i-hate-rwby-now, but yeah, this is... A very long post. Sorry!

#rwde #anti rwby #rwby bashing #rwby hate #this post includes some #pro ironwood #pro james ironwood #also it's not like I've done a lot of extensive research so please be kind #if I missed something #IW antis please leave me alone

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snakeassassins · 4 years

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Rabbit Dad Theory: A Weapon to Surpass Dad for One

okay so. I know that the theory about local big bad of the series being the protagonist’s father , but I’m pretty sure the real reason that midoriya’s dad hasn’t shown up in the plot is because he’s a rabbit

no really

[ WARNING: LONG post under the cut ]

Part 1: Rabbit Motifs

To get this party started properly, let’s begin with a bunch of the rabbit symbolism regarding Midoriya himself.

The most notable of which being that his hero costume is literally him dressing up as a rabbit

His freckles are even stylized to look like little rabbit whiskers. fuckin naruto kinnie

It bleeds into his fighting style too

Two big innovations he has that aren’t based on previous users of one for all

are hopping from place to place

and his big, rabbit-like kicks.

(which would also go a ways to explain why the plot thought Midoriya having legs was a big deal)

A lot of this goes into his characterization as well. The most notable bit being how much the first chapter of bnha parallels the story of the moon rabbit.

(Sometimes referred to as the jade rabbit which. Green)

Anyway, the story goes that a rabbit, along with a bunch of other animals (it varies depending on region) decided to gather food for the full moon as an offering, believing that the best one will bring a reward from the gods.

All of the animals bring plentiful amounts of food, sans the rabbit, who brings only grass.

Eventually, a starving old man comes along.

The other animals have food to give him, but refuse to do so to meet their own ends.

The rabbit, sympathizing with the old man,throws itself into a fire he was kindling so that he can be fed.

The old man, touched by the rabbit’s actions, reveals himself to be a god and saves it.

In honor of the rabbits deeds, the god imprints his image on the moon, bestowing special gifts to him.

Along with this there are a number of other mild rabbity traits tho.

Such as his skittishness.

Not to mention his general resourcefulness.

The show regularly conflates Midoriya being himself with him looking and acting more and more like a rabbit. This isn’t too hard to understand from a Doylist perspective; Horikoshi blatantly just likes bunnies. (I mean just look at Miruko)

What’s interesting here is that we’ve never been given an in-universe explanation for why midoriya himself identifies this way. In a series that is otherwise really invested in dissecting the ideal versions of themselves that characters want to live up to, the show doesn’t provide any justification for a character motif Midoriya has that is almost as present as all might himself.

Judging from the title of this post, you can probably guess what my reasoning for this choice is.

**Part 2: Hisashi’s Quirk **

“But snake,” you may be asking yourself, “We already know what Hisashi Midoriya’s quirk is. He breathes fire.”

This is true. he probably does. Consider what we know in-universe, though.

Characters with heteromorphic quirks don’t have their physical attributes listed as a part of their quirks if they have a secondary characteristic.

Tokoyami is the most obvious example. He’s a bird person, but his quirk is dark shadow. The fact that he’s a bird man goes unmentioned because as far as anyone is concerned, the shadow monster is his power.

Characters like Spinner have their animal attributes listed as quirks, but that’s only because he can’t do anything a gecko wouldn’t. If he didn’t make his lizard powers his quirk he’d have nothing to put.

If Midoriya’s dad happened to be, say, a rabbit that could breathe fire, the fire quirk would be listed while the rabbit bit went unstated. In fact, in a roundabout way, the fire quirk makes rabbit dad even more plausible.

You see, most of the animal character designs in bnha are actually recycled from an old series horikoshi did called oumagadoki zoo. Mind you this isn’t a knock at horikoshi or anything. A lot of mangaka do this sort of thing. I’m mostly bringing it up because one of the main characters is a rabbit called Shiina

and one of the early gags in the series is him smoking a carrot like a cigar.

This would be very easy to translate to my hero academia’s setting if said character happened to breathe fire.

I should also say for those keeping score at home that I don’t necessarily think Hizashi is a Shiina expy specifically (tbh I kinda imagine him being more like a fluffy spike spiegel). At most I think it’s probably just some design motifs and some VERY loose plot points.

There is also the somewhat mild rebuttal of Midoriya never attempting to do anything rabbit-like while trying to see if he had a quirk, but I think that’s self explanatory. If Izuku was a rabbit he’d notice right away, so of course he didn’t bother checking.

**Part 3: Why He’s Absent **

Of course, another big question that might be on your mind is why he’s not present if that’s the simple truth of his identity. Why have him fail to show himself for what has now been 300 chapters?

I can think of two simple reasons:

1) It’s really funny

Just fuckin. The Mystique of it all. You can’t tell fans a character is going to show up eventually and fail to have them appear without piquing someone’s interest. It’s bound to make fans speculate, especially with the canon dabi twist hanging in the air. Years to imagine what his presence might entail if it was something big enough to be worth planning ahead for.

And then. Boom. Bunny.

Fucking. Hysterical.

2) The themes. Oh god the themes

You might have noticed by now but Horikoshi has a tendency of making like. The Shounen Jump equivalent to that rpg character you make as a joke that then has like. an undeniably tragic life when you’re actually forced to tackle with the implications of your own character building.

I would not be surprised if the Midoriyas ended up falling into that category.

So let’s get into that.

One of the big things that my hero academia attempts to tackle is the concept of normalcy.

Mostly how it’s kinda bullshit and, in many cases, outright harmful.

What makes this bit interesting within the context of Midoriya family is Izuku’s sort of. Artificial Plainness.

He is a character deliberately designed to look as normal as possible. The key word there is look. Basically anyone who’s been following the series long enough to be reading this post knows that the kid often struggles to keep his head down

which also makes it interesting that the only two scenes where Midoriya wears his rabbit cowl are scenes where he is actively questioning the status quo.

Methinks there is some symbolism here.

Which I guess brings us back to square one.

At the end of the day, the concept of Midoriya’s dad being a rabbit is funny because it’s so unexpected. Without him around, the Midoriyas look like a normal family.

But that’s also the kicker.

Without him around, the Midoriyas look like a normal family.

A lot of people are quick to call Izuku’s dad an absentee father, but technically speaking, we don’t quite know that yet. We’ve only been in a position where we don’t see him as the audience.

And, well, when your kid is being bullied for something as banal as being quirkless, you might not want to give society more ammunition to use against him.

It wouldn’t strike me as strange if he just avoided being seen in public with his son to keep him safe in his own way.

They say that the nail that sticks out gets hammered down the most. Under those circumstances, it’s not too hard to understand why the loosest nail might just feel safer wriggling out of the wood altogether.

#izuku midoriya #boku no hero academia #mha #bnha #bnha theory #my hero academia #bnha spoilers

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barbaracleboy · 3 years

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So, because I’ve been seeing a few different takes and opinions on Vi’s relationship with The Hive, I thought that maybe I could give my take on it too, because why not? Please keep in mind that I’m a little stupid, and I tend to not dig deep when analyzing things: I like watching or reading in-depth analyses, but I tend to think about stories or gameplay mechanics largely on what I can see, and I don’t think that hard about the complexities or realities or whatever of most things. So forgive me if many of my points are obvious, or if some of what I say isn’t that well-thought out or anything like that. Also, as always, I have absolutely zero intention to insult anybody or tell them they’re viewing the game wrong: we all view things differently, and I thought it’d be nice if I talk a little about how I viewed Vi’s story, if for no other reason than to just explain why I say or draw or do what I do. With that in-mind, hopefully my analysis isn’t too simple or whatever…

Vi didn’t like The Hive, we know this. The reasons she gives, if I remember, are mainly that nobody believed in her dreams of being an explorer (and many made fun of her for it). With this “analysis” I wish to get into why I felt the Bees didn’t believe in Vi and why Vi said what she did.

To start off, the fact that The Hive discouraged Vi’s exploring, and the behavior of The Hive in a couple other ways, seems to be based on IRL beehives, and how Bees in general aren’t aggressive. As such, it could make sense that they didn't approve of the idea of one of their own going out to go exploring, potentially looking for trouble and getting themselves hurt. A more unique, in-universe reason also exists: Snakemouth Den. Now, while Snakemouth Den has also been known to be scary to the Ants, they had a reason not to discourage exploration: it held an artifact that the Ant Queen wanted. The Bees clearly didn’t care as much about the Sapling or anything that can help them obtain it (considering they used an artifact to make their factory and didn’t even know it), so when they heard of their kind going to Snakemouth Den and never coming back, their reaction was likely something like “Holy shit, stay away from that place and any place like it.” They didn’t want treasures or immortality (at least most of them didn’t), and if trying to get it meant death they’d rather stay away from it. Speaking of Queens, Bianca probably also plays a hand in why the Bees were so against Vi becoming an explorer. By Vi’s own admission Bianca is a pacifist, and that coupled with Bianca (trying to) treat her subjects more like her children than most Queens seem to points to the idea that she feels her little babees would be safer and happier at home than exploring. This care for safety can be seen as soon as and even before you enter The Hive: there’s a little room to scan for anything that could potentially be harmful to The Hive, and you can’t even enter without having a guard start the elevator for you. They clearly want danger as far away from them as possible. “Why does Bianca have a military if she’s a pacifist and cares for her kids’ safety, then?” Honestly, that’s a good question, and the best answer I have is that it’d be stupid not to have a defense force, especially in the Lost Sands (which are home to all sorts of Bandits and monsters) and with the close proximity to with The Wasps (who are known to usually be aggressive, and have particularly been so since some time before the start of the game). That’s not even getting into Vi being a teenager, which would probably further discourage The Hive from supporting her wanting to be an explorer: you should support the dreams of young people, but there’s a difference between a kid, I don’t know, wanting to be an engineer and wanting to be a bounty hunter. One is notably more dangerous (and probably less common) than the other, and while stomping on a kid’s dream is mean it’s perhaps better, in some scenarios, than encouraging them to do something that can get them killed. Hell, a large part of why Vi became as successful an explorer as she did was that she had a team to help her out, and she initially didn’t seem to want that. A young girl, in a society that cares a ton about being safe, trying to go off and fight monsters and bad guys on her own (probably just in the hopes of getting rich)? It’s no wonder her peers wouldn’t support that.

All that said, do I think Bees were justified in denying Vi her dream? That she should have just shut up and sucked it up? No, of course not. They clearly cared too much about safety, to the point that they let one of their own leave anyway due to her feeling so out of place for thinking differently. There was clearly a lack of empathy for her, and I highly doubt that their responses to Vi were all variations of “Now, now, don’t hurt yourself!”, there probably was a lot of teasing and even some bullying. Now, I don’t think Vi is invalid or wrong for leaving or being upset...but I also feel like she may not be too reliable a “Narrator”.

That’s not to say she was lying, that she never experienced anything bad in The Hive...but to be frank, she is a [bit of a stupid d:] teenager. She’s a little selfish, she’s a little reckless, and she probably said and did a lot of what she said and did due to big teen emotions. She talked about Bees like they were all bullies, and pompous, but does The Hive really give that impression? Do the Bees? When she returns almost none of them seem to bring up anything bad, they don’t seem to be making fun of her, there doesn’t seem to be any animosity towards her from them, despite how bad she tended to speak of them. “Well, Vi probably didn’t know a lot of them, and vice versa.” That could very well be true, but most of the ones we see in-game seem to have experience with Vi: even ignoring all the ones that have a notable amount of screen time or mandatory dialogue, Vi seems to know multiple of them by name, and many of them know Vi’s name too, and if she’s been gone so long you’d think one would have forgotten the other unless they had spent a non-insignificant time together. She seems to have formed relationships with multiple bees, and while few if any of them were as close as the one she formed with Jaune they probably existed, it’s not like she got along with nobody but Jaune. The point I’m trying to make by talking about relationships is that you’d think there would be multiple Jaune-type situations, of Vi being very mad at one of the bees and vice versa, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Vi’s anger is mostly general, she mostly talks crap about The Hive as a whole, while few if any of the bees seem to hold a grudge against her. This leads me to think that Vi makes a big deal about all the other bees bullying her out of hyperbole, and her emotions making her think the situation’s worse than it is: I mean, she claims that all bees are pompous, but really only Beette fits that description, right? And even Beette is noted to not be that bad, for selling you the key to the house of whatever (though personally I feel she still seemed pretty rude, but eh). Vi is very upset, to the point that she says things that aren’t entirely true and kind of throw multiple people under the bus (I know that type of anger, let me fuckin’ tell you). This anger, of course, comes because she was so close to Jaune, and enjoyed time with her more than any other Bee. I assume Vi was hoping Jaune would support that dream more than the other bees would, but when she didn’t Vi was really hurt, and in her anger she said bad things to everybody in The Hive and left. She probably wasn’t thinking about what she was saying or how leaving would affect her or whatever, she was just having angry teenage angst and she wanted out (having said that, you could totally make the argument that Jaune was a jerk for being so upset about a little insult, but again, eh). I feel like Vi might have even felt she was being irrational, at least deep down, but what she was feeling at the time of her leaving took priority. When Kabbu falls through the trapdoor in Snakemouth, Vi says something along the lines of “This is the perfect time to go home.” It’s probably a throwaway line, maybe I’m overthinking things for once, but what if that was her going “Okay, I know I said all that stuff but things are really bad now and I just wanna go home.” I can believe that, when I was young I said and tried to do some stupid things, but it didn’t take long before I decided to at least try to calm down, do something less intense maybe. I can believe that a kid like Vi would try something crazy in order to stick it to everyone who said she couldn’t, but would perhaps think twice upon seeing the dangers. Vi and Kabbu had barely spent any time in Snakemouth before he fell, so I imagine that when Vi saw there was some actual danger in exploring she at least briefly thought about how she behaved, thought that she might have been letting her emotions get the best of her, and considered going home where she probably was safe. Even if she didn’t intend go all the way back to The Hive, the point is that what she said and did when leaving could very well have been her just acting out in frustration. In the end it’s for the best that she continued with exploring (for a wide variety of reasons), but my point is that her initial push to do so came largely from that initial bout of frustration.

So, to make a long story short, I feel that The Hive cared very heavily about safety, for many reasons, and as such wished for Vi to not be an explorer for her own good. Things were not that bad for Vi, but when much of her society, including her closest sister, didn’t approve of what she wanted she threw somewhat of a fit and ran off, perhaps feeling that she was overreacting a little but being too young and headstrong to not do exactly what she wanted to do. Once again, my point here is not that The Hive was right, Vi was wrong. It’s more that the situation was complicated and bad, and both Vi and her peers had a lot to learn (which, in my opinion, they mostly did learn by the end of the main story).

I don’t know, I think a big part of why I go to bat for The Hive so much is that I very, very much value family. It’s kind of how I was raised, I feel that the people that share your blood, that likely live with you and likely care for you and likely know about you way more than most other people are special, and that the relationships with them are also special, so it’s best to try and keep things as good with them as possible. I��m not saying that you should be a slave to people, or you should take abuse from people, or that you should support bad behavior, all because those involved are related to you. I just feel that it’s important to try and understand the feelings of those you’re close to, and that (when fair and applicable) we should always try to have the best possible relationship with our family. Vi initially failed with both of these, and so did Jaune and many of the other bees.

To go on a little tangent, I think the family stuff is a big part of why I love The Hive as much as I do. With how many of the Bees seem to know each other (compared to the Ants, where there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of interactions implied or otherwise), how Bianca views The Bees as her children, and how Vi’s formed a close relationship with one of her many, many sisters, The Hive just seems to be a family much more than any other kingdom: this is in both good ways like Bees being closer, and less than good ways like having unfortunate situations (failures to communicate, misunderstandings, and feelings of being ignored or unsupported) like many families do. I think I like all that a lot due to my aforementioned value of family stuff, and one can even give lore-y reasons for it being neat. Like, real life bug colonies don’t really do family stuff, right? They just work to care for the colony, that’s it. That The Hive holds much more in the way close bonds could be a sign of the change from crystals continuing, and having more effects than immediately obvious: not only are bugs losing limbs but living longer, they’re gaining their own wants, and they’re former closer bonds to each other than “This is my fellow worker, we both will make the honey.” I just find that sweet, I think, and with what’s shown of Vi and how she interacts with The Hive in-game I think it tells a sweet story of a girl feeling separated from her home and family but learning that things weren’t that bad, repairing bridges that could have stayed burnt, and probably bringing about changes that will make the people there happier. Bianca mentions how “We have heard of [Vi’s] exploits”, and how “the outside world did [her] some good”: from the sounds of it multiple Bees were proud of Vi for her success as an explorer, and one can imagine that leading to more explorers coming from The Hive, as well as the Bees learning to support unique ideas more. For as sad as the situation with Vi and The Hive was, it seems to have with her learning to like her old home again and it will likely lead to it getting even better than it was before.

Hoo, that was a whole lot of talking and I can’t help but fear that a lot of it is either rambly, repetitive, or illogical...but, uh, if you read all the way through it then thank you so much! I appreciate it, and I hope it wasn’t too difficult to read. I bet there’s all sorts of stuff we don’t know that could be for or against my reading: for all we know Bianca kept Vi in a cupboard back when she lived in The Hive, for all we know Vi set multiple Bees on fire on purpose. But, based on what we do know, that’s how I feel about the situation. Once more, I do not intend to insult anybody that thinks differently from me or anything (tbh I get the impression a lot of people may think different from me, ha): I just prefer funnier and happier stuff (as I feel I’ve said many times before), and I just felt like showing why I viewed the deal with Vi and The Hive to be a sad one, but one rife with misunderstanding (amongst the bugs involved at least) and one that ended quite positively. If you disagree that’s perfectly fine, I just hope I explained myself in a way that makes sense and isn’t like, stupidly simple or ignorant or whatever. Even if it is, I apologize. I just think the Bees are all cute and I like to think that they’re happy, ha.

#bug fables #lots of text #maybe this is just me trying to sound smarter...#also sorry that I beat myself up a lot here #I just like bees and I don't think I'm great at showing it beyond drawing queen bianca doing silly things lel #also sorry I say lel ha and use emoticons so much :>#also sorry I aplogize so much #ok I'll hush now

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connorandersons-blog · 4 years

Note

RK1700: Connor gets bullied & protective Nines?

Ok, so there is the obvious warning for bullying, but Connor also kinda gets the shit beat out of him, so there's that. Hope you enjoy!!

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No matter how hard he tried, Connor wasn't the most liked in the station. He tried, he really did, but a lot of the humans weren't exactly happy with the androids. The public in general was more positive but that didn't mean everyone would like them. Hell, most of the people who supported them weren't in Detroit.

The one person he expected to be a dick to him wasn't. Well, not directly. He avoided Connor and acted almost emotionless when they did have to interact.

Connor was sure it was a mixture between Connor having beaten his ass in the evidence room and Nines.

Nines had been assigned to Gavin and seemed to have taken it as a personal challenge. He was beyond intimating and Gavin seemed to shrink away from him more than try to sass or talk back.

He'd gotten apologizes from a few officers but after it got them almost outcasted, people stopped. Hank didn't care about others, he stuck by Connor. Not that he was even that close. They trusted one another but they weren't as close as Connor would have liked. He knew it would take time, Hank didn't want to get close to someone else again.

Connor was basically alone. He hated it. He hated the stupid humans and their mean words. He hated their sneers and he hated himself for putting up with it.

He didn't want to fight back. He hoped he could be like Markus, somehow win them over with respect and pacifism. But it just seemed to make everything worse. What was he doing wrong?!?

What was even worse was the insults. They knew how to get to Connor, what words to say to make it actually hurt. They would say things they didn't even believe if it meant getting at Connor.

Like now.

"How many did you kill? Huh? You were here for a whole damn year before all this shit went down. How many didn't you murder?" Officer Laurens sneers and Connor ducks his head.

He was trying to get a coffee for Hank, hoping him doing so would improve their relationship. He opened his mouth before closing it. He knew how many. He could never forget that, not ever.

He had arrested 112 androids which he knew now lead to death. He had killed 15 himself. Exactly 127 in all.

"Aww, the poor 'droid is upset!" He laughed before pushing past Connor and back into the bullpen.

Connor bit the inside of his cheek, willing the tears away. Sure some of the androids actually deserved to be caught but they didn't deserve to be dissected like animals. The other androids didn't deserve the fear when Connor's name was muttered under their breath.

"Connor, may I have a word?" A voice calls out and Connor jumps, sloshing the hot coffee onto his hands.

"Ow! Fuck," he grumbled, putting the cup down and moving to the sink to run his hands under the cold water.

Nines walks over and stands next to Connor, his hands clasped behind his back. "I apologize for startling you and therefore causing you harm, that wasn't my intention."

Connor stared at the water flowing over his hands. It didn't pool, it didn't linger. It avoided him just as much as everyone else did. "It's ok… probably deserve it anyway." The last bit was mumbled but Nines probably still heard it. He was better than Connor in every way.

"I don't agree, you don't deserve any of the treatment you have been receiving. Why haven't you stood up for yourself?" Nines asks, pulling Connor's hands out of the water and reaching above to the counter, grabbing the android first aid kit.

Connor let his hands be taken, eyes never leaving the floor. "I don't see a reason to. They are right, I did kill our people."

Nines stayed quiet for a few seconds, but those seconds felt like hours as Nines started to treat the burns. "Yesterday I had to shoot an android that raised a weapon to a suspect."

"It's not the same." He mumbled. He remembered each face, every single name, and every single voice.

"An android I arrested has gotten the death sentence. Markus himself has shared about the junkyard and what he had to do to stay alive. If you disobeyed your orders it would have led to you being deactivated. I know for a fact Markus does not blame you or even see a reason to and neither do I." Nines then covered Connor's hand with his own. It was oddly intimate, this was more contact than he ever had with Nines before.

Connor didn't want to argue because he didn't want to prove himself right and have Nines hate him. "Ok." He simply said, not giving in on his views of himself, but hoping to end the conversation.

Nines stared at him for what felt like centuries before moving away. "Again, I apologize for startling you. If you need reassurance I am here."

Connor bit the inside of his cheek but nodded. Like hell, he'd go to Nines to simply complain about jerks. He should be strong enough mentally to handle it, but everyone seemed to know he wasn't.

It was a month later when it all escalated. Connor had gone to the parking deck, finishing up a day's work and ready to get home when he was ambushed.

He easily identified five men, all worked at the DPD alongside Connor. These were the same men who tormented him, but it seemed they had only just been warming up.

Oliver rained blows onto Connor as if he meant to smash him into the very earth and Laurens and Max did the same, the other two held Connor down. Did they think he'd fight back? Each didn't just want Connor dead, they wanted him smashed, obliterated, nothing left to even recognize.

He simply tried to curl up, protect his head and thirium pump at all costs. Each hit sent a jolt of pain through him, and he wanted to call out for help but knew no one would come. Most would simply look the other way. His stomach ached, his arms lost tension and his legs began to weaken. He couldn't hold on much longer, the taste of his own blue blood was strong in his mouth.

Then there was shouting and the kicking and hitting stopped. He cracked one eye open and saw Nines easily restraining Oliver first.

He easily twists their arms causing them to scream in pain before he let them go. They all scramble away, terrified of the murderous look on Nines face.

Connor would be terrified too if he was going up against Nines. But then Nines was crouching down in front of him, his face morphing into one of concern.

His face wasn't too bad, just a cut above his eyebrow, the scarlet blood flowing into his eyes. It was his body that was damaged and left him shaking. He was lucky they didn't break anything but it was damn near close.

Nines' eyes scanned from one injury to another, taking in the gore that was Connor's body. Then he very gently picked him up bridal style and carried him to be able to sit against the wall.

"I'm sorry I'm so weak" Connor whispered, wincing at every small movement.

"You are attacked because you have self-restraint, not because you are weak. I will make sure no one ever touches you like that again." There's so much conviction in his voice that Connor can't help but believe him. Nines would keep him safe.

"Oh, so people can touch me in a different way?" Connor tried to tease, his smirk looking more like a grimace.

"No, no one can touch you like that either." It was mumbled as Nines started to make sure the healing process was kicking in, but Connor heard.

Well, that was certainly interesting and he couldn't seem to stop talking even if he knew he'd regret it later. "And why not?"

Nines looked up, the corner of his lips upturned but Connor saw a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes. "Because that's my job."

"Oh," he breathed out. He simply blinked at Nines, knowing he had a deep blush on his face. "Ok."

He was definitely not opposed to that idea, he simply never thought Nines would want that kind of thing, romantic or otherwise, with Connor.

Yet, the gentle way Nines reached up and brushed a strand of hair out of Connor's face said otherwise. He leaned into it, letting his eyes flutter closed. He felt safe. Safer than he ever had before even with having just been beaten to a pulp. Being near Nines always made him feel so safe.

"Let's get you some thirium then later we can perhaps talk more." Nines didn't move away, keeping his hand gently cradling Connor.

"Yeah, yeah I'd like that."

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idk-my-aesthetic · 4 years

Text

Ok you can discuss how ppl have gotten into the habit of trying to turn everything into a symptom or w/e the current discourse about mental health talk on this site is w/o mocking adhd/autistic ppl. Y’all know that right?

Like. Look i get that it’s annoying when ppl try to ask if having a favorite color is a adhd/autism thing. But I did the same thing when I first found out adhd existed. I was so fucking excited to learn that “hey maybe I’m not a lazy fuck up, maybe there actually is something different about me” that any scrap of proof I could find I held close to my chest. Especially with all the people telling me that there was no way I had adhd- that I was too smart. It took me 6 years of constantly asking to get a formal diagnosis. And I needed all those little validations to keep fighting.

Idk. Maybe it’s not the best thing to try and psycho analyze every little thing about yourself. But I don’t think it’s the huge deal ppl make it out to be. I think it’s smthn a lot of kids do and will eventually stop doing. I think it’s just part of growing up, especially when your nerodivergent

And I definitely don’t think it’s turning ADHD into a trend or getting ppl to misdiagnosis themselves or whatever tf ppl are saying. Like seriously grow up. You think it’s a bad thing that ppl with adhd are getting too much attention or whatever? Like seriously go to therapy. So many ppl irl still see adhd as “ohh squirrel disease” and there’s literally no positive representation for us in traditional media. Why are you so mad ppl are finally getting the chance to discuss their struggles with other ppl like them

And if your argument is “well everyone online says they have adhd so clearly it’s just a fad”. Online spaces like tumblr are like catnip to ppl with adhd. They’re more accepting and accessibile, it’s easy to indulge hyperfixations with fandom, they’re constantly stimulating, if something doesn’t interest you all you need to do to find something new is scroll, and they’re generally free of the bullies that have mocked us for being nerodivergent. Such a fucking mystery why a lot of nerodivergent ppl would converge here. It’s literally like when everyone was saying “well everyone is gay now bc of the internet” and ignoring the fact that gay kids were in online spaces bc they were safer, had communities of ppl like them and had information/resources

Like fuck guys. I do think there are some problems with how we talk about adhd on this site. For example a lot of adhd symptoms are relatively normal things taken to such high of a degree that they become debilitating. A lot of symptoms of adhd overlap with a lot of other things. These are both things that need to be remembered and aren’t recognized as much as they should be.

But I basically never see criticisms like that I literally just see NT ppl mocking ppl with adhd like we’re back in elementary school. Like go do something productive instead of being a dick head.

I’ve honestly seen more ppl mocking adhd or saying the way we talk about having adhd is problematic than I have seen ppl actually talking about having adhd.

And like, worse case scenario, someone misdiagnoses themselves as having adhd. What are the world ending consequences? They go to the dr and find out they don’t? Or find out they have something else? Hell maybe they find out they don’t have anything but questioning if they did got them to start going to therapy and improve their lives

Like y’all freak out that we’re “confusing ppl” or w/e but shouldn’t everyone do some introspection? Check to see if they feel different bc everyone feels different or if there truly is something different about how they’re wired. Why is this the worst possible thing for you guys

Or is all of that justification so you can make fun of ppl with adhd like elementary and middle school bullies. Literally grow up.

I really feel like the way ppl talk about mental health on tumblr has shifted. One way is how we stopped romanticizing mental illness- which is a really really good thing. But now I feel like discussing nerodivergence at all is like cringey. Ppl used to talk about their symptoms all the time and there were communities of ppl that supported one another. And now I feel like the only time we talk about it is when you guys are once again mocking ppl with adhd and autism. Anyone with basically anything else you ignore. Which is fucked up btw fucking listen to psychotic ppl, ppl with different forms of depression, ppl with personality disorders, etc. it’s really not that hard

TLDR: stop being dicks to ppl with adhd. You can comment on and critic how ppl talk about adhd without being an asshole. Listen to all types of nerodivergent ppl.

#mini rant sorry I’m just. ugh.#long post #adhd #actually adhd #actually nerodivergent #nerodivergent

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snarkwrites · 4 years

Text

02 | gangsta, sweetpea; riverdale

Notes:

First of all, it hurts my heart. It physically PAINS ME... to write Reggie as the cocky fuckboy jerk he was in season 2. But, here we are. So.. there’s that. Secondly, this was not at all, in any stretch of my imagination... how I was intending this second part to go. If anything, I was going to hold off on actually writing this for at least two more parts. But again, here we are.

I just needed Alyssa to kind of... Show me more, so that kind of happens here... Anyway.. I honestly like how this turned out. Again, I preface with this.. I haven’t written much for Riverdale. I’m still figuring people and things out. So I’m sorry if it’s OOC or anything.

Summary:

Opposites attract.. But will the sparks create an inferno or will everything go up in flames?

Pairing:

Sweetpea x Andrews!OFC, Alyssa. (FYI, she was originally his fraternal twin but I’ve decided in my head that she’s a year younger than he is.))

Warnings:

Teen angst. Drama. Fights and other typical shenanigans. Fluff. Heavy sexual tension. I’d say slow burn too, so be warned. Eventual smut. Oh and a heavy caution because I’m only loosely following the series here. I’m picking and choosing things.

Other Parts:

[ one - soundtrack ]

Other Stuff:

[ faq - tag list doc ]

Tagging:

@brithedemonspawn

If anybody else wants to be tagged in this lemme know I guess? I’ll add you to my Riverdale tag list!

TWO.

I tensed as I walked past the section in the hallway where the few Ghoulies lockers happened to be. If people thought Serpents were scary, they obviously hadn’t ever encountered a Ghoulie before.

I’d almost made it past when one of them, a dark haired guy with these hollow eyes called out to me with a menacing laugh, “Hey honey? I gotta ask.. The carpet match the drapes?”

I clenched my fists. Took a deep breath and reminded myself that the Ghoulies were not a group of people I particularly wanted to be on the radar of. At all. I took another step or two. Picking up my pace. Trying to avoid any and all potential conflict because god knows, we’ve had more than enough of that since Riverdale and South Side merged into one school.

But he repeated himself.

I stopped and turned back to look at him.

To hide the fact that my hands were shaking, I placed one on my hip. Biting my lip as I took a breath or two just to keep from giving away the tangible fear I felt in the moment.

,, And naturally, Reggie is nowhere to be found. Because you’ve been avoiding him like a child since the argument. Of course this happens now...” the thought came but I shoved it right out of my head. For one thing, since when did I need Reggie, or anyone for that matter, rushing in to protect me from the big scary gangsters? Just the realization that I’d actually become one of the girls I used to roll my eyes at when I lived in Chicago with mom had me disgusted with myself.

And like that, the Andrews temper rose to the surface before I could stop it.

“Was a simple question, honey? You slow?” the Ghoulie stepped out into the middle of the hallway. Not too close to me, but still too close for my personal comfort. I gulped. Stepped back to put more distance between the two of us.

“ Are you slow, asshole?” I asked quietly. Wanting to pat myself on the back for how calmly I kept my tone.

He chuckled and shook his head, stepping closer all over again. Eyeing me up and down as if I were a piece of meat and he was hungry. Licking his lip and somehow making the gesture seem so lewd I had to fight back the bile as it rose in my throat.

“What the fuck did you just say to me, cherry?”

“I asked if you’re slow. You’re the one out here repeating asinine questions. My lack of a response should’ve been your first clue I wasn’t going to answer.” I shrugged. The shake in my hands doubled. My voice wavered just slightly at the end of my comment and I prayed to hell that this giant fuckhead couldn’t smell fear because if he could, I was royally screwed.

,, you should have just kept walking but nooooo. Now look where your temper’s gotten you.” the thought came just as the guy stepped closer. Glaring down at me.

“Ya know you’re lucky I like ‘em cute and feisty. Mantle’s little piece of ass, right?” he sneered as he mentioned Reggie.

“I don’t belong to anybody, you bag of dicks.” I stated. Starting to get more irritated. Starting to get entirely too big for my britches.

“Is that so?” he snarled, looking me up and down. Making me cringe in disgust as he did so because somehow, the way he was looking at me made me feel just so… Dirty.

“If you get any closer I’m going to punch you in the cock.” my jaw clenched and I muttered the words, lowering my hand. Gazing up at him with what I hoped was the calmest ‘don’t fuck with me’ look I could muster.

“Easy cherry.” ,,What the hell is Sweetpea doing here?” the thought came and I almost asked him that question but before I could say anything more, I was being pulled out of the way and further down the hall by Sweetpea. Left to stand there and puzzle out exactly why he chose to intervene as he stormed back down the hall and practically threw the dark haired Ghoulie up against the locker, a thick forearm right across the Ghoulies throat.

Snarling something at him that I couldn’t hear from where I stood. I took a few shaky breaths and watched the confrontation with concern. Tension filling my body as I hugged my notebooks against me. More than once I started to walk down.

Try to stop things before they turned into an actual shit show. It was the second time I was about to that Toni Topaz, one of the only two people I’d ever seen Sweetpea speak to, cleared her throat from beside me and stretched out an arm.

“Oh no you don’t, Ariel. What you’re going to do is stand right here. Like a good little Vixen. We clear?”

I eyed her, not entirely sure whether she was insulting me or genuinely trying to keep me out of harms way. The soft laugh and little smile she gave me, calm but firm as she nodded her head and spoke again. “Say you agree. Because trust me… You don’t want in the middle of this.”

“But..” I protested, going quiet. Giving up on trying to make sense of any of this. My eyes scanning the hall for Reggie, for my brother, for anybody familiar. Anybody I deemed just a little safer.

I spotted Jughead sprinting towards the ongoing altercation, pulling the two apart, shoving at Sweetpea as the two of them proceeded to have words and Jughead got Sweetpea away from the Ghoulie.

“Thank god.” I let out a breath I didn’t even realize I’d been holding. Relaxed a little bit. From beside me, Toni spoke up again.

“Ya know.. It really says a lot about your so called boyfriend that the entire time you were just about to dive right in over your head that he was down by Mandy’s locker, flirting as if you weren’t even an issue.”

I winced at her words. Sighed and shrugged. “We’re not exactly on speaking terms right now.”

“I kind of figured. Pretty sure the entire school heard you two fighting in the hallway after Biology.” Toni mused, studying me intently.

I shook my head, shrugging again. Wincing because they probably had. I’d had to hear about it from pretty much every single person in my third period class. Constantly getting reminded how Reggie was ‘like.. The hottest guy in school’ and I was ‘lucky he noticed me to begin with…’

,, oddly enough, not feeling so lucky right now.” the thought came and despite trying to ignore it, I couldn’t shake it this time.

Toni eyed me in concern. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. It’s just been a long and crappy day. I’m half tempted to ditch.” I admitted. At the suggestion, she gave a smirk. Grabbing hold of my arm and practically dragging me towards the double doors that lead out into the parking lot.

“Where on earth are we going?” I asked in a laugh. The first laugh I’d actually had all day.

“We’re ditching, duh. C’mon. We’ll go down to the quarry. Or go play Mortal Kombat at the Wyrm. Unless you’re scared…” Toni stopped to gaze at me, a challenging smirk as she tapped her foot.

The guy I always saw her with around campus caught up to us. “You ditchin without me, Topaz? What the hell?”

“Cherry here needs a break.” Toni answered. At this point, I didn’t even bother trying to correct her about the name. It wouldn’t do any good. It hadn’t in the entire two weeks I’d spent as Sweetpea’s partner in Biology. Somehow I got the distinct impression that this was my nickname now and it was going to stick. No matter what I did.

I eyed Toni, not quite sure what was going on. Why was she being nice to me at all when everyone I knew were so quick to be mean and angry that they had to share a school with what my so called friends referred to as ‘trash’ or in Cheryl’s case, ‘total degenerates.’.. I found myself wondering why she’d bother giving me a chance at all. If I were in her position.. I pushed the thought out of my head. Because I had been in her position. I could’ve spoken up. I could’ve been nasty about Sweetpea being paired with me in class. I could’ve been a bully like pretty much everyone else around me was but I’d mostly just kept to myself.

It was mostly out of self preservation, but also, because if anyone from Riverdale had known me when I lived in Chicago at the start of the year, they’d quickly realize I was… Not the girl I seem to be here. That I was probably closer to a Serpent than I was a true Northsider.

Here I’m just trying to keep my head down and stay out of trouble. Trying to make life easier on my father while he’s healing from nearly dying earlier in the year. Trying to keep my brother and my father from making a big mistake and drifting apart all because my brother’s gotten too full of himself lately and he’s letting Hiram Lodge and all the ‘gifts’ the man seems willing to dispense go straight to his head. Mostly because I promised my mother when she sent me here to live with Dad and Archie that I was absolutely not going to get into any more trouble than I’d gotten into while living with her. That I was going to turn over a new leaf. Because according to her, I was ‘starting to scare the shit out of her’ with some of the things I’d managed to get myself caught right in the middle of.

Deep down I knew I stood out amongst my so called ‘friends’ like a sore thumb. I was only on the Vixens because I happened to be a gymnast and danced since I could walk. I was only with Reggie because he thought I was hot and I was dumb enough to fall for his pretty face, fast car and smooth talk. I knew I was an imposter. I was miserable too, because while I was finally able to enjoy living with my dad and my brother and make up for lost time with them I wasn’t able to breathe or relax and be myself without worrying if someone was going to see right through me.

It was pathetic if I really stopped to think about it.

I think Fangs was more than a little puzzled too because he went to say something but Toni elbowed him in the side and shot him a silencing glare before fixing her gaze on me all over again.

“I said, we’re skipping.. Unless Cherry here is too chicken.”

“You realize she’s a North Sider..” Fangs pointed out. Ignoring Toni’s glare this time and eyeing me warily. I squared my shoulders, gazing up at him defiantly.

“You realize that I’m standing right here.” I piped up, giving Fangs Fogarty a pout and glaring. I took a deep breath and glanced over my shoulder at Riverdale High.

I just wanted one afternoon to breathe.

One afternoon wouldn’t hurt…

I smirked as my eyes met Toni’s. “Okay. Alright. I’m in.”

“I knew it! Something told me you weren’t just another mindless cheer zombie.” Toni remarked. At this rate, I didn’t dare question or ask what she meant by it. Something in my gut told me to just roll with whatever was happening.

Right up until the point Sweetpea caught up to the three of us. Glaring at me. With a bruise forming on his jaw and an angry gleam in his eyes. “What the hell is she doing tagging along?”

“She’s coming with, Pea.” Toni stated firmly. Sweetpea snickered. “Yeah, no. Not happening.”

“She’s coming.” Toni argued, tapping her foot against the pavement, folding her arms over her chest. “The more we argue this, the more we stand the chance of being caught.”

Sweetpea grumbled and glared at me. “Fine. But I don’t want to hear a fucking word when we’re all sitting in detention because Cherry here gets a guilty conscience and runs to snitch.”

“Asshole.” I snapped at him.

“Princess.” he snapped right back.

“ Have you ever been swimming at the quarry?” Toni asked as we all made a break for the treeline. The school was getting further behind us and the further it got, the more free I felt.

“ A time or two.” I answered. “Usually at night though.”

This got me a look from all three of them.

“At night?”

“Yeah. What? Like you guys aren’t out till all hours doing whatever… I just wanted to go swim and look at the stars…” I trailed off.

“You realize there’s a serial killer going around offing people right now, right?” Sweetpea was gazing at me as if I’d lost my mind. So were Fangs and Toni.

“Yeah. I know. Trust me, I know. Kind of why I had a knife with me.” I shrugged as I spotted a path I used when I ditched during my first week of school at Riverdale High. I started towards it.

“The path is over here, Cherry.” Sweetpea called out in annoyance. Grumbling to himself about how bringing me along was a bad idea.

“That path maybe. This one is faster. Comes out right on the bank.” I stopped and turned back to look at the three of them. Tapping my foot impatiently.

“You can trust me.” I stated calmly. “I found this path my first week here. I ditched during History.”

“Color me shocked.” Fangs eyed me in amusement. Toni gave a soft laugh as she caught up to me.

“Are you sure coming with you guys was a good idea?” I asked her while the guys were out of earshot. I didn’t want to cause problems between her and her friends. Or make the afternoon tense.

“I get sick of being the only girl. I don’t care if it was or not. They can learn to love it.” Toni flashed me a grin as we pushed through thick shrubs and found ourselves standing on the creekbank.

I eyed the water. “Well, it’s either stand here or swim. C’mon.” I called out to Toni as I stepped to the water’s edge and turned back to smirk at her. Turning her own earlier words around. “I mean.. Unless you’re a chicken, Toni.”

“I know you did not just..” Toni laughed as we dove in. Sweetpea and Fangs stepped onto the bank swearing up a storm and glaring and as they stepped closer to the water, Toni and I swam over and sent up the biggest splash we could manage.

Neither of them were amused.

By the time we were finished swimming, the sun was starting to go down. I happened to remember I was supposed to be at cheerleading practice. And then the thought occurred to me that I honestly just wasn’t feeling it today. If I went to practice I’d have to deal with Reggie. And I just wasn’t in the mood to talk to him yet.

I was still upset about our fight in the hallway that morning. I was starting to really step back and think long and hard about just how one-sided everything actually was between Reggie and I.

“Hey, won’t the Vixens have a meltdown if you miss practice, Cherry?”

It was Sweetpea’s not so subtle way of telling me to leave. I wasn’t stupid, I could see it from the look in his eyes.

Toni glared at him and Sweetpea shrugged, sitting up. Wrapping his arms around his knees as he stared out at the water. “She’s only here because she’s bored anyway.” he muttered, making me growl to myself quietly.

I started to stand and make my exit, but Toni shook her head. “C’mon. Live a little.”

I eyed the opening in the treeline and her and flopped back against the sandy bank. “Honestly, I don’t even care at this point. I’d really rather not see Reggie or deal with anybody’s crap. Screw it. I’ve already avoided it all this long...”

I sat up after a second or two, staring out at the water. I’d have to go home soon and honestly, I didn’t want to do that either, because I knew that if Archie and dad weren’t fighting, they’d be giving each other the silent treatment.

And the tension between my dad and my brother was starting to drive me crazy.

Just as the sun completely vanished, we stepped out of the trees and into Pickens Park. Just between the North and the South side.

“I should get going. My dad’s got enough to worry about with Archie and his growing ego lately. I’ll see you guys around, okay?”

“Hey,Cherry?” Toni called out just as I turned to start walking towards my father’s house. I stopped and turned back, smiling, “Yeah?”

“Maybe for a Northsider you’re not the worst.” Toni gave a teasing grin as she added, “See you around.”

“Maybe for a Serpent you’re not completely scary.” I smiled back at her before turning to hurry towards my father’s house just as I spotted the patrol car turning in at the top of our street.

Probably out looking for people violating the city wide curfew. I definitely didn’t want to be caught doing that.

Just as I stepped through the front door, Archie spoke up.

“Reggie couldn’t find you after practice. And I didn’t see you after third period. Where did you go, Alyssa?”

“ I left. I got tired of the bullshit, Archie.”

“Yeah, I told him to let you cool down. I also talked to him about the way he’s been treating you.”

“Archie, what the entire fuck, why would you do that?” I groaned, raising my hand to my forehead.

“Because you’re my sister and I know when you’re hurt. And I don’t like it when you’re hurt. I’m supposed to protect you, pixie.”

“Archie, I clearly handled the situation.”

“ I know, but I wanted to remind him what would happen if he hurt you.”

I grumbled and took a deep breath, pinching the bridge of my nose. After a second or two, I hugged my brother, raising to tiptoe to fluff his hair a little. “How’s dad tonight?”

“He’s at the construction site. He had to go in and meet with someone, I think.”

I started to head up to my room and Archie called out to me, making me laugh. “ I know you skipped today. My lips are sealed.”

“Thank you.” I smiled before turning and disappearing up the stairs, stepping into my room and flopping across my bed.

I plugged in my phone to charge and once it had charged, it started to blow up with notifications.

At least half of them were worried texts and voicemails from Reggie. I braced myself and hit call.

XXX

The phone rang and Reggie’s arm shot out, fumbling around on the nightstand blindly. Once he had it in his hand, he answered sleepily.

“Hello?”

“Hey.”

“Thank fucking god. You scared the hell out of me, princess. Where were you?” Reggie’s words tumbled out practically on top of each other. he took a deep breath or two and muttered quietly, “Thank god you’re okay. You can’t pull shit like this. There’s a serial killer...” Reggie went quiet.

“I needed some space. I left after second period.”

“Archie told me you were pretty upset. Listen.. I’m..” Reggie trailed off as she sighed and muttered, “Yeah. I know, you’re sorry. I’m sorry too.”

“I was just trying to tell you that the Serpents are dangerous, okay? Because I saw Sweetpea flirting with you during Biology and guys like that only want one thing, princess. And he’d say anything to get it too.”

He frowned when Alyssa grumbled and then spoke up. Shutting down the conversation. She seemed distant. Quieter tonight. It wasn’t like after any of their arguments were they made up, talked things out and she was back to being bubbly and happy.

It had him concerned.

It had him more than a little irritated at Sweetpea for all the flirting he’d done earlier. Worried that something the guy said or did might have gotten her attention. He didn’t like the thought of it at all.

,, you only want her because she’s new territory, man. Don’t go catching feelings like some weak little bitch.” his mind taunted, but the sad part of it all was that he was starting to realize that it was too late for that. He’d caught feelings months ago.

And now, thanks to bullshit and a fucking Serpent, he might be about to lose her… ,, and the bet, man.. Remember the bet? If you lose, you’re going to look like a little bitch.”

But the bet didn’t even matter anymore. He just didn’t want to lose her.

“Alyssa.. I really mean it. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Reggie. Listen… It’s getting late. I’m going to sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow, alright?”

Before he could say anything else, he got the dial tone. Swearing, he lightly slammed his fist down on his nightstand and took a few shaky breaths.

He wanted to kick himself. If he’d known any of this was coming, he would’ve spoken up back when the teacher gave them their Biology partners.

,, yeah but you didn’t and now it might be a little too late… No. No it’s not. Not if I can help it...”

#sweetpea fanfiction #sweetpea fanfic #sweetpea fic #sweetpea iamgine #sweetpea imagines #my writing ; sweetpea #my fanfiction ; sweetpea #my fics ; sweetpea #// god i hope I'm not making an absolute mess in writing this #// it pained me to write Reggie like the crappy boyfriend.#// just know that.

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fuckyeahasexual · 5 years

Text

I really don’t get the argument “asexuals aren’t oppressed because they don’t get beaten in the streets”. Like, in that case, a gay person walking on the street isn’t oppressed either then, as it’s not written anywhere on them that they are gay. The oppression starts when people know. Let an ace person wear a shirt that says “I’m a proud asexual”, and I can guarantee you they won’t stay safe for long, the same way a gay person walking hands in hands with their partner will be unsafe. Because our sexuality is hidden from sight does not mean we do not get oppressed for of it. Yes, it is easier to hide so we encounter less situations that are threatening to us. And because not everyone knows about asexuality, their ignorance will sometimes work in our favor. Still, do you realize that telling us we can “pass” as being normal so we can just pretend and stay safe, is also telling us “as long as you shut up you’ll be fine so it’s not oppression”? Do you, as a gay person, as a lesbian person, as a bisexual person, as a trans person, as a queer person, want to live your life chained and silenced? Do you want to live your life forever hidden just so you can stay safe? I do not believe so. This is why you fight, right? So why should WE ACES suffer this treatment? Why should WE ACES endure isolation when you won’t take it? Why should WE ACES shut up about the fact we do not experience sexual attraction while it’s part of who we are and we are dehumanized for it? Fighting for your rights and freedom while denying us ours, while muting our voices, while isolating us, isn’t a battle for a better future for all. It isn’t a battle for Human rights. It’s hypocrisy. And it’s oppression. Before I told people I was ace, nobody bothered me. They even liked me a lot, we joked around, it was all fun and games, convivial, even homey. Then when I did tell them I was asexual because it was important to me, everything changed. I got bullied. Insulted. Made fun of. Received death threats. Had rape suggested as medication. Recommendations for psychiatrists to consult. How is it not oppression? And how is it not oppression due to my asexuality, when the only factor that triggered such drastic changes was my coming out as asexual? How is it not valid? How is it not enough? I get that as an allosexual person in an allosexual society, it is hard to grasp what being an asexual feels like. “You could just avoid it”. Oh yes, we very well could. But if you were in our shoes, would you accept to just avoid it? Would you accept to just hide it? Would you accept to live your life on the low because it’s the only way for you to feel and be safe? Would you accept to live without any sort of media, any sort of human contact, any sort of implicit societal rules, any sort of beliefs, because each and every single thing in the world is entangled to sexual attraction and sexuality, something you never chose not to feel; and which turns you out to be a freak because HOW COULD NOT FEELING SEXUAL ATTRACTION IN AN OVERSEXUALIZED SOCIETY BE HUMAN? Again, I do not believe so. This is also why you would fight, right? So don’t you think that we deserve, just as everyone else, to be able to raise our voices and say that we’ve had enough? It’s not because you aren’t able to see and grasp what it feels like to be us, that it makes us disappear. That our oppression does not exist. That we cease to suffer. That we don’t matter anymore. You don’t have to understand. You don’t even have to accept. You just have to respect us. You just have to respect our existence. You just have to respect our experiences. You just have to respect our suffering. We aren’t here to invade. We aren’t here to steal anything away. We are here because we belong with you. Because we relate to you. Because the place that makes you feel safer, prouder and braver, is also the one that makes us feel safer, prouder and braver. Because the community that sees you, the community that gives your existence credit, is also the one which sees us and gives our existence credit. Because we want to join our voices to yours, in that fight for recognition. In that fight for basic Human rights. In that fight for freedom. We are not the enemy. We are not your ally either. We are your fellow fists, swords and shields. We want the same thing as you do, so is it really worth it to tear each other apart while we could fight alongside one another instead?

#submission #goo off !!

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renniecirque · 4 years

Text

More Rennie HCs!!!

how do they listen to their music? ipod, mp3, computer, cd, records, etc? Records, his phone, sometimes his school laptop

do they take baths or showers? do they prefer one over the other? Bath! Rennie is old fashioned and loves taking a soak in a warm tub filled with herbs and calming scents. It’s not uncommon to find him fast asleep in the tub after a long day.

do they wear their hair down when they sleep, or tied up / braided? Down. Though during the summer he clips his bangs up out of his face!

how many blankets / pillows do they like to have on their bed? 2 blankets! One thin one and another that is minky/soft. Rennie is the king of pillows; he has 4. 3 to lay on, one to hold.

what do they normally dream about? nightmares or nonsense? Dreams are strange for Rennie as they aren’t quite nightmares but they can leave him unsettled. He often replays the past in his sleep.

do they wake up groggy or alert? do they like mornings? Groggy as heck. You’d think he was a different person with how silent and dragging his body-like he is if he has an early morning class. Some say it looks like someone dragged him across the field and left him there with how he looks in the morning. Not at all.

what do they sleep in? pj’s, normal clothes, nothing? A cardigan over his old night gown. He also wears night shorts under it. Though he also now has a matching lounge pj set with his friend.

what do they smell like? do they use perfume or cologne? Rennie either smells like coffee or fresh pine/floral scents. He uses sprays whenever he feels like it but doesn’t make a habit of it.

what shampoo scent do they like the best and why? Lavender! Anything that reminds him of his home in the forest. Plus it has soothing attributes.

bar soap or liquid? do they like loofahs? Bar! He’s quite fond of homemade oatmeal soap. Eh he’s indifferent.

do they prefer sleeping alone or with someone else? Sleeping with someone else. Back at his home, he used to share a bed with his brother and now currently with his sister in the small cottage. It just feels safe to him.

do they like the room cold or hot when they sleep? Cold. Layers are easier to deal with than sweating.

do they stay up too late? do they like staying up? Very much so. Rennie is a big night owl and likes to stay up until dusk before heading to bed. Sadly school makes that more difficult.

do they know how to drive? do they like to drive? NO WAY DFKGKDJ Rennie is used to using brooms or carriage if needed!

do they prefer taxis / buses / subways, etc? or none of the above? N/A. The valley doesn’t really have things like that.

do they have pets? what kind? dogs, cats, etc? No pets. Though Rennie is quite familiar with the animals that lurk near his home.

do they prefer cats or dogs? or neither? Neither.

what are their phobias? do they have any at all? Lightning, war, abandonment issues.

what do they hate being teased about? are they teased often? Their loud voice, getting too excited over things and not knowing when to tone it down- not often thankfully.

did they have any fears growing up that they’ve since conquered? Rennie had a fear of how weak humans were when playing went horribly wrong- ultimately adding fuel to an already tense war and causing them to flee their home. I wouldn’t say it was a full conquered fear just… Rennie copes with it better than he used to. Though not in the most friendly way.

do they have a fear they want to conquer, but haven’t yet? Abandonment issues. Since his brother left, Rennie realized just how quiet the family home is without the one who stood up for him all of this time.

how do they show fear? sweating, shaking, blankness, anger, etc? Biting his lip, twisting his hair, can range from fight to flight depending on the severity. Laughing especially.

do they have a short temper? what’s most likely to set it off? Not terribly short. Setting him off usually involves underestimating him or blocking his way for long periods of time. He also doesn’t stand for weak people getting bullied by fraud mages who think they’re hot shit just because they’re in the brawn dorm.

do they get scared easily? does loud noises, shouting, etc, scare them? Not super easily- though sudden crashes can make him jump. Yelling does put him on edge, especially if it is directed towards him.

what are they most passionate about? what could they debate about for hours? Rennie is very passionate about learning anything and everything about magic! It’s his goal to become a well-rounded magician his mother and father could be proud of. He is also very passionate with his work making clothes for his sister and goods to sell back home. Definitely the history of magic and it’s influence across the world. How each country lives in very different ways involving magic.

what do they never, ever want to speak of, ever? The incident where he hurt a human child on accident. Where his brother risked it all to protect him, even if it meant getting hurt himself on top of severe punishment from the school. How he dropped his birth name because there is terrible magic in knowing one’s true name. He didn’t wish to be controlled by the past anymore.

do they have kids? do they want kids? if so, how many? No kids, he’s a kid himself. Rennie wouldn’t be Against having a family though it’s hard to gauge. Maybe 1-2 kids??? He does like family.

is there something they’d like to change about themselves physically? Not really… though he wouldn’t complain about being a little taller.

is there something about their personality they want to change? The trickster side of himself he shows for sure. While it can be fun at times, he often uses it as a shield to hide his real feelings.

do they have good fashion sense? or do they just wear whatever? Generally Rennie wears whatever is comfortable, though he has an appreciation for certain styles. He at least tries to look presentable.

do they critique others easily? do they judge from afar? To a degree, yes. Though it is more from afar and only within his mind. He only lays light jabs to people and prefers to keep snide comments to himself. No sense picking unnecessary battles.

are they too hard on themselves over the little things? Eh not really! Rennie has a very carefree approach to much of his school life, only getting serious when it comes to his own courses and if others are trying to push him/his friends around. He only gets upset when he fails something he knows he can pull off.

are they the jealous type? what are they most likely to be jealous of? Not very jealous, no. If anything, he’s more envious and resigned to the fact that there are some fae who can live and exist among humans without worry. He’s envious some can survive the strife within the Valley with little issue.

are they possessive over their things? or over other people? Both? Definitely more over people. Those Rennie welcomes into his life are like family and he is not going to let people hurt those he cares about. Not being seen as a dangerous monster by others is all Rennie hoped for.

would they rather be alone or in a relationship? While Rennie feels safer being with other people, I still think he’d rather be alone. I don’t think Rennie would trust someone so openly with his heart as a Fae. Plus relationships with non-fae lead to an endless cycle of heartache.

what do they think about polyamorous relationships? would they do it? They never considered it but nothing is off the table???

do they have parents / parental figures? do they have a good relationship with them? Rennie has his mother and father! For the most part it is very positive. A strict yet loving household, Rennie’s father expects his children to upkeep the family tradition and talent with magic and good schooling. While Rennie’s mother simply wishes for her children to grow well-rounded and respectful. The change in their lifestyle really showed her what really is important and that’s family above influence.

do they have siblings? if so, how many? do they like them? Rennie has an older brother and his baby sister! He’s the middle baby! Rennie loves his siblings more than anything, especially having a close bond with his brother Brier. Brier tries to distance himself from Rennie now not in a mean way but as a- I’ve protected you for so long and I want you to live and survive on your own way. He can’t always be there, so he needs Rennie to be able to protect and live for himself.

do they have a big family or a small family? no family? A decently big family of 5!

where would they want to live if they could live anywhere? Why? Anywhere outside of the Valley. While Rennie’s home is comforting, the memories of The Valley of Thorns are very raw still and being in a place always on the edge of war exhausts him greatly. Humans and Fae never mix, no matter how hard they try to reconcile the kingdoms.

are they happy in their current living situation? why or why not? Honestly? No. The small hut feels welcoming and warm but Rennie feels he’d feel much better being in another country. Being at NRC for semesters gives him that escape from the reality.

do they like living alone or with another person / other people? Other people for sure!

did they go to college, or are they attending? did / do they like it? Not yet.

what’s their dream job / profession? do they have one? Rennie would love to be a teacher for incantations and potions.

if they could control one thing in the world, what would it be? I have no idea kdfjkdfj maybe how people get along? He’d never want wars again.

do they like tv shows or movies? or neither? Rennie doesn’t mind movies, though he really only watches them at school with friends.

do they have social media? do they like it or hate it? obsess over it? Rennie has a Magicame however, he barely knows how to use it.

do they have a creative outlet? if so, what is it? Sewing!!! Rennie loves making clothes and blankets in his free time.

where do they see themselves in 2 / 5 / 10 years? 2 years he hopes to be a great 3rd year student others can look up to. In 5 years he hopes to graduate NRC like his brother and make his family proud. In 10 years he hopes to be working his dream job and training his baby sister in magic alongside his parents.

#twst #twst oc #twisted wonderland #rennie cirque #rennie lore #not art #long post #my oc

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ghostnebula · 4 years

Note

Yes, I want to read the Loser’s reactions!! Can’t wait to read the fic even if it will make me cry 😢

Okay! <3

[Part 1]

It’s Stan who notices first, when they’re all at the quarry together, in nothing but their underwear, lining up along the edge of that little cliff and preparing to jump together. Because Eddie didn’t really think about it, in the moment. They’re all caught up the euphoria of finally graduating, finally being able to escape this town without any repercussions -- finally having an excuse to pack up their shit and go. And they are going, first thing tomorrow; they’re renting a big house together in Portland and they’ve all packed their crap already, excited to be out of here. They’ll be sleeping over at the clubhouse one last time, and in the morning the suitcases and duffel bags will be crammed into their cars and then they’ll be gone.

So Eddie isn’t thinking, “I better not take my shirt off,” while they’re all undressing; he’s thinking about how Bev came back from Portland just to be here for their last “Goodbye” (read: “Fuck you”) to their shitty hometown and the evils therein. He’s thinking about how she said, “Hey, remember the first time we hung out -- like, for real -- and you guys were all too chickenshit to go cliff-diving so I had to show you how it’s done?” He’s thinking about how they’re all going to jump together this time, like a quaint little metaphor for the leap of faith they’re taking together in life.

When Stan asks him what happened to his back, quietly, like he doesn’t want the others overhearing, there’s a sensation like ice water down his spine and his expression must give something away, because then he’s being drawn away from the rest of the Losers, to the shade of the gnarled mulberry bush they’ve all dumped their clothes under, and Stan is asking him in this soft urgent voice if he’s alright, what happened, doesn’t he know that he can always talk to them if something is wrong?

He does know, it’s just that this time he can’t talk to them. He can’t tell them what’s wrong because then they’ll know, and they’ll tell him all the same things his mom keeps telling him (keeps making him repeat) that he tries so hard not to believe. He’ll believe it for sure if he has to hear it from them. And then, worse yet, they’ll leave him here, to let Derry finish rotting the soul right out of him. They’re not going to want him in Portland with them anymore, not if anything he’s learned in life is true (that he’s filthy and undesirable and deviant and hated, and all manner of other things that have been drilled into his head). He’ll be stuck here, and if someone else doesn’t get to him first, he might just end up dead by his own hand in a few years. It feels like swallowing lead, knowing that he’s so easy to abandon like that.

He can’t stand the idea of being left behind.

He’s worked himself into what must be an asthma attack, he realizes, when he feels Stan’s fingers in his hair and realizes he’s been moved to sit on the ground, forehead against his knees, and Stan is trying to direct his breathing. By now the rest of the Losers are approaching, asking questions, and he’s dizzy from the fear, his breathing picking up again.

Richie’s just dropping to his knees in front of him when he finds his voice and manages to croak out a, “Don’t leave me.”

“Leave you?” says Richie. “Leave you where?”

It takes a couple seconds of him fighting to just breathe normally in spite of the crushing pressure in his chest, but he lifts his head (realizes he’s crying) and says, “Derry.”

There’s quiet for a moment. Bev sits beside Richie, reaching for Eddie’s hand, and he lets her take it, and then Bill is at his side and Stan is whispering something in his ear, and Bill’s hand on his shoulder twists his torso just slightly so he can get a better look at his back. “What happened?” he’s asking, just the same as Stan, uncharacteristically calm.

“Can’t--” Eddie has to swallow because his throat is burning, and he shakes his head while more tears slip down his cheeks and says, “I can’t tell you. I can’t. Just please don’t leave me here. Don’t leave me with her. I can’t stay here.”

And the reaction after they’ve made some inferences, in the moment’s following his tearful outburst, is also strangely calm. In fact, it’s Bev who opens her mouth first, and instead of being the voice of reason as she often tends to be, she says, “I’ll kill her.” And instead of leaping at the first opportunity for revenge, as he’s now known to do, Bill says, “What’s the point? We’re leaving tomorrow. And he’s coming with us.”

“And you’re not going back to see her. At all. Not for anything,” Richie says, to Eddie, who’s still staring up at him like he’s going to have the answers. His hands shake when brings them up to Eddie’s face and wipe some of the sticky tears away, and Eddie nods.

“Okay,” he says, and he feels those last few threads, the ones that had been clinging to this wild idea that maybe, just maybe, his mother did these things out of love, give way. Because love doesn’t feel like hot metal against your flesh and the beads of a rosary between your fingers, the teeth of a vent digging into your sore knees. It doesn’t sound like threats hissed between yellowed teeth or being told you’ll be disowned for the way you are, or names that sting worse than anything your childhood bullies ever came up with. It certainly doesn’t feel like being afraid of your own mother.

He thinks -- and he can’t sure, but he’d like to hope -- that it’s supposed to feel like this. Like gentle hands in yours and being drawn into an embrace. Like being protected. Like someone would defend you to their last breath (and Bill does promise that, he does, he says so as his arms wrap around Eddie, and everyone else sweeps in around them until they’re all a tangle of indistinguishable limbs).

He’s sorry about who he is, maybe. He isn’t going to change, even if he isn’t going to tell them. It’s enough to know he feels safer here than he’s ever felt in his own home. It’s enough that Bev keeps asking, quietly (and he hopes jokingly) if he wants her to “deal with that” for him.

(She did, after all, kill her dad under similar circumstances, so he can only hope she’s kidding.)

It’s enough, for him, that when he returns home in the morning to get all the bags he packed to move to Portland, he’s got a six-person wall of bodyguards who accompany him inside despite his mother’s rage at the intrusion, and the hatred is palpable to the point that she sits down and shuts up within minutes of their arrival, and they don’t let her try to hug him goodbye. All she gets is a, “Don’t fucking touch him,” from Richie as he’s ushered out the door by Mike on one side and Stan on the other.

And it’s enough that Richie holds him while he cries that entire first night, and swears to any God that will listen that he’s never going to let anyone else hurt Eddie, never again.

“Not even Killer Klowns from Outer Space?” Eddie asks, through a half-laugh, half-sob, shirtless on Richie’s bed because he asked to see the scars (and then also started crying, and Eddie doesn’t really get why, because it’s not as if he ever felt it, but maybe he’s more empathetic than Eddie ever thought).

“Especially not Killer Klowns from Outer Space,” Richie says, but there’s no trace of mirth in his expression.

Eddie wishes he could tell him how much he loves him. That it’s so potent it almost makes him feel sick, sometimes. But he’s smart enough to know the consequences for ever voicing these things -- educated enough to know that even if Richie doesn’t outright hate him for it, someone else will, and it’ll be difficult for Richie to make good on these promises when there are so many people out there who want boys like him dead.

Just having him here, like this, in the new house they all share, away from his mother, swearing on his life that he’ll do whatever it takes to protect him -- that’s enough, for now.

#Anonymous #ask #reddie #the losers club #tw homophobia #tw abuse #cw religion #writing #sorry

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lettersforbye · 4 years

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Three-time Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman may be retired, but she's doing everything she can to make gymnastics safer for young girls who aspire to be the next Aly or Simone.

In 2017, Raisman released her book Fierce, describing the sexual abuse she experienced at the hands of the USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar and in 2018, delivered her powerful testimony at Nassar's 2018 sentencing hearing. (He has since been convicted and has been sentenced to 175 years in prison.) Since then, she's been working to provide young athletes with the abuse-free environment she wishes she had by speaking out against USA Gymnastics and working with organizations like Darkness to Light, the nation's leading advocate for the prevention of child sexual abuse. She's also become a vocal mental health advocate, shedding light on the often silent mental health struggles that survivors of sexual abuse experience.

As an Aerie ambassador since 2018, she has always released collections that are deeply personal, both in design and cause. (In a previous collection, a sports bra was printed with 'Trust Yourself', something Raisman says was hard to do after the abuse she experienced.) Her newest capsule collection, OFFLINE by Aerie x Aly Raisman, available February 26, will be Raisman's third collaboration with the brand that has benefited Darkness to Light.

Ahead of the collection launch, we talked to Raisman about her journey to healing — and why the fight for justice is far from over.

You've been involved with Darkness to Light since 2018. What are they, and you, doing to ensure athletes have abuse-free environments?

I started working with Darkness to Light very soon after I spoke in court a couple of years ago. They actually reached out after they saw all of us speak and it's just been really incredible to be able to learn from them. I've taken the course that they have and I really believe in it. It's something I wish that every single adult took because if we want to prevent child sexual abuse, we have to have the adults educated — we can't expect the children to know something's wrong. One of the things we're working on is the Flip the Switch campaign, which offers training for free because we recognize trying to convince adults to take training is hard, especially when it's about sexual abuse. A lot of people don't want to talk about it or think about it. So the collaborations with Aerie are so amazing because it donates a lot of money to the campaign and allows people to take this training for free, which is so important.

Simone Biles said in a recent 60 Minutes interview that she wouldn't feel comfortable with her future daughter being part of USA gymnastics because she's not confident the abuse won't happen again. Do you feel the same?

I've thought a lot about this question and, you know, I realized it's not the sport [that's the problem]. I love gymnastics so much and it has brought me so many incredible lessons and friendships and so many amazing experiences. So it's not the sport, it's the corrupt system — that's the problem. It's the organization, it's the people that enable these things to happen. And so you know, I agree with Simone that USA gymnastics, the United States Olympic Committee, haven't done what we've been asking them to do to ensure this doesn't happen again. A really important thing that has not been done that we've been asking for for years is: We want answers. It's so important to have an independent investigation because you can't say that things are better if we don't understand who knew exactly what, when, how this happened and what [aspects] of the system were flawed or corrupt that allowed this to go on for so long. And it's really important for us to understand that for us to be able to believe in a better USA gymnastics. And they still haven't done that. In fact, I feel like they're still trying to get away from acting like they did anything wrong, which is not okay.

I also think it's important to recognize that the way survivors feel can be greatly impacted by how their abuse is handled or not handled. Ours has been really poorly handled. So it really impacts survivors because this has been going on for so long and we're still having to talk about it in interviews because nothing has changed. It's always triggering when you have to talk about it; when you see things in the news about it. It's taking years and years and years, when it should not, it shouldn't be like that.

You've been outspoken about the anxiety and PTSD you've experienced as a result of your experience and you've also been a big mental health advocate these past few years. What do you want people to know about the healing process and what has that looked like for you as of late?

The last couple of months I'm starting to feel a little bit more like myself, but I have, you know, ups and downs just like everyone else. Healing isn't one size fits all and every day I feel differently. Some days I feel calmer and other days I feel triggered by the smallest things. I still get triggered often, but I think that's normal when there's so much trauma that I've experienced. I'm trying to take it day by day, but multiple times a week I will spend time writing in a journal and talking to an expert, and just really working on myself, but it's a process.

But I'm also hoping to help educate people that healing takes a long time and abuse isn't something that you just suffer in the moment; it can really carry on with you. And I think a really important thing for people to understand is that survivors being supported and heard and believed is really, really crucial to their healing because when you've gone through abuse, there's often so much gaslighting. There's a lot of manipulation. It's really can be very confusing. You start to second-guess your own thoughts. You start to feel like you can't trust yourself anymore. You don't know what's right. I just hope that we get to a point one day where when a survivor shares their story publicly, people understand that you can't know what anyone else is going through. We just have to be compassionate.

You recently partnered with Woodward gymnastics camp, which you actually attended when you were younger, to help with their program and also champion a safer environment for the campers. All staff will undergo Darkness to Light training, but how else are you helping to create a different experience for this next generation? I imagine mental health is much more of a conversation.

We want the kids to have fun and recognize that they're more than just an athlete, whether it's a gymnast or a skateboarder or whatever they come to camp for. It's also important to recognize that when the kids come to camp, they may be struggling with, you know, being bullied back home or maybe they're having trouble with something going on at home or at their gym. So we want to give tools to help kids so that they really trust their gut, and empower them to ask questions. I wish I asked more questions growing up. I'm trying to learn from the things I wish I had when I was younger by talking to other survivors or other athletes.

I definitely think the [mental health] conversation is getting so much better — I have seen a shift even in the way I feel talking about [mental health]. In the first interview I did a couple of years ago talking about anxiety and depression, I felt really embarrassed and now I don't feel like that at all. If anything, it feels freeing. I know that so many people are experiencing it, so it just feels nice to be able to connect with people and it makes it a little easier to navigate because I don't feel like I'm suffering alone.

Some people are saying that it's a new era for gymnastics right now; there are all of these fun routines going viral and it's more joy-filled and less uptight. What's your take on that?

I'm not competing anymore so it's hard to say, but I think it's so great to see the collegiate gymnasts and how their routines, I mean, they look like they're having so much fun. I think that it's sort of like anything else — of course, there are a lot of gymnasts that might be enjoying themselves and may feel like there are certain parts of [the sport] that are better. But there are also a lot of collegiate gymnasts that have spoken out in the last few years about different types of abuse, including verbal abuse. And it's the same with the elite world — there are some coaches that I hear from the gymnasts that are great, and certain coaches that aren't. So, it's hard to generalize, but overall, it's really nice to see. There was so much about abuse, and we're so grateful for the support, but I think it's also really great for the fans to see gymnasts having fun as well.

But again, it's important that we also recognize that the leadership still at USA gymnastics is not doing the right thing. They need to investigate and they have to be transparent about what happened and why it happened. In fact, Darkness to Light had been working with USA Gymnastics for about six years. And they said they weren't doing the things they were suggesting and so they decided not to work with them anymore — they just want to put out a press release [and be done with it]. You can look at their press statements that they put out now and they're very similar to what they were decades ago. It's just a lot of the same talk, but no action behind it.

#aly raisman #gymnastics

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